


Lovers' Bequest

by xHemlockx



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Bisexual Dean Winchester, Canon Compliant, Case Fic, Castiel and Dean Winchester Have a Profound Bond, Castiel is a Dissatisfied Wife, Dean Winchester Needs a Hug, Depressed Dean Winchester, Depressed Sam Winchester, Emotionally Repressed Dean Winchester, Family, Female Characters, First Time, Friends to Lovers, Friendship/Love, Hurt/Comfort, Idiots in Love, Implied/Referenced Abuse, M/M, Mild Smut, Monster of the Week, Mutual Pining, POV Dean Winchester, Past Abuse, Plot, Plotty, Sam Winchester Needs a Hug, Worried Castiel (Supernatural)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-03
Updated: 2020-05-03
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:01:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 35,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22102222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xHemlockx/pseuds/xHemlockx
Summary: Sam and Dean head to a town that’s gone off the rails and discover that the inhabitants have lost their impulse control. Things go from bad to worse when the boys get infected by whatever’s going on.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester, Dean Winchester/Original Female Character(s), Dean Winchester/Original Male Character(s)
Comments: 93
Kudos: 113





	1. Blood on the Walls

_**Then:** _

Dean had been keeping the archangel, Michael, under lock and key in his head—a situation that was neither comfortable nor sustainable. In episode 14, the team went up against a Gorgon who managed to knock Dean unconscious by repeatedly slamming his head against a wall. Michael took the opportunity to escape, possess Rowena, and kill every Alternate Dimension hunter in the bunker. Jack then tapped into the power of his soul to save Rowena, destroy Michael, and absorb the archangel’s grace.

The next episode is set a few days later. The boys have been hunting non-stop since the Michael incident, solving three cases in rapid succession before episode 15 takes place. This is my version of what happens during that first case.

* * *

_ **Now:** _

The bunker was unusually quiet. Bloodstains still painted the walls and floor, but the bodies were gone—burned at dawn.

They’d lost six hunters in five minutes, and it was Dean’s fault. He knew it was. It didn’t matter what Sam or Cas had to say about it. Keeping Michael under control had been his responsibility, yet he’d failed, knowing there would be consequences. Now he had to add that weight to the rest of the crap he carried around—a laundry list of guilt, regret, loss, and about a thousand other things.

Dean slammed a fist into his pillow, trying to beat it into shape, but it was no use. The pillow wasn’t the problem. He should be asleep. He hadn’t been able to rest since trapping Michael, only grabbing a few hours of shut-eye a week when he’d been lucky. He was running on fumes and caffeine, and a few hours ago, if given the chance, he would have slept until the cows came home. But now, no matter how hard he squeezed his eyes shut, it wouldn't come.

“Fuck it,” he said as he rolled onto his back with a deep sigh.

He swung his legs over the side of the bed and pushed himself up, fighting back a groan as his body reminded him that although his mind might be wide awake, the rest of him was not. He stretched out the kinks in his spine and shoulders as he went to get changed, and only when he was fully dressed, did he remember that he didn’t need to do that anymore. With only Sam, Cas, and Jack in the bunker, Dean could walk out of his room wearing nothing but his shorts if he felt like it. The thought wasn’t as freeing as he’d thought it would be. It made his stomach twist as he squeezed his eyes shut. He took a deep, steadying breath, shook off the gut-wrenching sorrow, and marched out of his room.

The hallway was deserted. Not a single sound broke the silence—no footsteps or laughter, not even the low buzz of conversation. Dean struggled to think of the last time this place had been so empty and quiet, but it only seemed to make the silence more deafening. It hung heavily in the air, so oppressive that it felt like it could crush a guy under all that weight.

Dean almost backtracked into his room. He could watch a movie or listen to music or try to get some sleep again, anything to get away from the nothingness that had settled over the bunker. But he carried on forward. He was already dressed; he might as well get a beer.

He found himself stomping down the halls, his footfalls far heavier than usual in a desperate attempt to fill the silence, but he could still feel it there, beneath the noise, ready to settle in once more. It was like kicking up dust to get rid of it: an impermanent solution.

The kitchen was empty—no Maggie making coffee, no Tim, Tom, or whatever his name was preparing his latest broth, and none of the others milling about. Dean couldn’t remember half their names. He hadn’t cared enough to ask, let alone commit them to memory. They’d been strangers in his home. A week ago—hell, a day ago—he would have been happy to see them all leave. But not like this. They hadn’t deserved this.

He slammed the fridge closed, sending it rocking against the wall and uncapped his beer, taking a long swallow to distract himself from the fact that it was his fault. Six hunters were dead because of him. Jack might have lost the rest of his soul because of him. Rowena was fucking traumatised because of him. And Sam had lost people he was close to because of him. He’d let everyone down, just like he’d known he would. He shouldn’t have been surprised by the way things had turned out.

The beer obviously wasn’t doing the trick. He needed something stronger to help his denial along. By most people’s standards, it was too early for hard liquor, but most people didn’t have to deal with half the crap that Dean did, so screw them. He downed the rest of his bottle on his way to the library where the Men of Letters had kept the good stuff—bourbon that was older than he was; rich brown whiskeys that could get you drunk with just a sip; and more flavours of gin than he cared to count.

However, his quest for inebriation was put on hold when he spotted Sam packing a bag.

Sam looked as bad as he had during the Hell Trials—his skin pale and clammy, his hair unbrushed and unwashed, his eyes puffy and bloodshot. Dean might have been taking the Apocalypse World hunters’ deaths hard, but it was nothing compared to how bad Sam was dealing with the whole thing, and it showed. Sam’s hands shook with a kind of frantic energy as he zipped his bag shut like he’d forgotten to go easy on the Adderall. He didn’t look up as Dean walked up to him, his red-rimmed gaze too intent on the task at hand.

Dean eased closer and leaned his hip against the desk, resting his beer bottle on the table's surface, trying hard not to look too concerned. “How’s it going, Sammy?”

“Great,” said Sam. He sounded almost breathless as he forced a smile. He wouldn’t look Dean in the eye as he ran a hand through his hair and busied himself with his tablet. “I found us a case.”

Dean watched his brother’s eyes, the rapid blinking barely enough to hide their wet sheen. “You sure that’s a good idea? I mean, no offence, but you don’t look so good.”

“I want to work.” With his jaw set like that Dean knew better than to argue with him, so he nodded and stepped back.

“I’ll go grab my stuff.”

Thoughts of a hard drink forgotten, Dean headed back to his room. If there was one thing that helped him forget his problems even better than booze, it was a hunt. He couldn’t afford any distractions during one of those. The whole ‘one wrong move and you end up dead or worse’ thing was a hell of a motivator to stay focused. And if it helped Sam too, at least for a little while, then that was a bonus.

Dean slowed as he passed the kitchen, noticing that it wasn’t as empty as it had been five minutes ago. Cas sat on one of the stools at the small table, his back as straight as a plank, chin held high, and gaze lost in the distance as he stared straight ahead. He didn’t blink—didn’t even breathe. It was never easy to forget that Cas wasn’t human. There was always something a little off about him: he stood too still; he stared a lot; he didn’t get cultural references or the concept of personal space. But there were other times, like now, when it was blatantly obvious, when he exuded something so raw, powerful, and unnerving that it either drew you in or sent you running. Even after so many years, Dean couldn’t decide which instinct was wisest.

“Hey, buddy,” he said, detouring into the kitchen to drop off his empty bottle. “How are you doing?”

Cas finally blinked as he turned to look at Dean, and he started breathing again. Not for the first time, Dean wondered if the angel only thought to do these very human things when he wasn’t alone. “I’m well, Dean. How are you?”

“I’m great." He resisted the urge to roll his eyes at the formality with which Cas so often spoke. That there was another reason why Cas always struck people as odd, but as much as Dean had tried to teach him, there were some things the angel still couldn't get a handle on—old dogs, new tricks, and all that. Dean shook off the thought. "Listen, Sam and I are heading out on a case if you want to come.”

Cas's gaze went to the corridor, which led to the bedrooms, and his shoulders dropped an inch. “It’s very kind of you to offer, but I should stay here and look after Jack.”

Dean ignored the way his heart sank. Cas was a useful guy to have around on a hunt. Even when his angel mojo was on the fritz, he could hold his own better than a lot of hunters Dean knew. Sam and Dean were both low on sleep and grieving; they could use the extra hand. But Cas was right—Jack needed him more.

Dean nodded and slid onto the stool opposite Cas. Their shins bumped beneath the narrow table. “How is the kid?”

“I don’t know.” Cas sighed, and his words came out slowly, like a confession. “I’m worried about him, Dean. He didn’t have much of his soul left after Lily Sunder’s spell, and the amount of power it must have taken for him to vanquish Michael is unimaginable.”

Cas folded his hands in front of him, and Dean fought back the urge to reach over and give them a squeeze. It would have been the friendly thing to do—handing out a bit of physical and moral support. But he and Cas didn’t do that, so starting now would just make it seem like this situation was one of the most helpless they’d ever found themselves in. So Dean kept his hands to himself, although his leg did brush against Cas’s again as he shifted in his seat.

Dean cleared his throat as he forced his gaze away from those folded hands. “Do you know how much of his soul he’s got left?”

“I can’t say for sure.” Cas shook his head, his shoulders and eyes drooping with a weariness that Dean hadn’t seen on him in a long time.

“Can’t you do that thing, you know, where you stick your hand in and touch it?”

Cas's shoulders dropped further. “The procedure might do more harm than good—the strain could prove to be too much for his soul to bear. And even if I did attempt it, I don’t believe it would be conclusive. Michael’s archangel grace would undoubtedly affect the results in some way.”

“In that case, quit worrying about it,” Dean said decisively. “Micheal’s gone; Jack is still standing, and there’s nothing you can do to check on his soul. So take the win, and if anything happens, we’ll deal with it.”

Cas’s eyes rose to meet Dean’s. “Is that what you’re going to do? Stop worrying about it?”

Dean got up from the stool, slipping on a smile that felt only mildly strained. “I’m going to go hunt a monster and forget about it.”

“Of course.” The words held a note of scepticism which Dean chose to ignore as he left Cas sitting in the kitchen. He hurried down the hall to his room to pack his bag before Sam got the smart idea of leaving without him.

His duffel was still full of all his gear—it wasn’t like he’d had many opportunities to unpack between getting knocked out by a Gorgon, letting Michael out, and sorting out six hunters’ funerals. He quickly shook off that thought as he dumped some clean clothes into the bag, zipped it up, and slung it over his shoulder. On the way back down the hall, he almost stopped outside Jack’s room. He got so far as to brush his fingers against the doorknob before he shook his head and carried on his way. The kid was probably tired anyway; Dean shouldn’t bother him.

Cas had relocated his still brooding self into the library, standing quietly in a corner as Sam put his laptop into his satchel.

Sam barely glanced up as Dean entered the room, flicking his eyes up for half a second before hanging his head again. “You ready?”

“Let’s roll,” said Dean. Sam started toward the garage, but Dean held back a moment, stopping in front of Cas. “You sure you don’t want to come?”

Cas nodded with his usual gravity and seriousness. “I’m sure. Be safe, Dean.”

Dean was unwittingly reminded of the wives and husbands of military folks and firefighters from shows like _Army Wives_ and _Station 19_ , where the men and women would stand strong as their loved ones ventured off into the arms of danger, wishing them well and fighting off their worry and dread. That was what Cas looked and sounded like, and it made Dean feel… warm, he guessed. It wasn’t an unpleasant feeling, but he wasn’t altogether comfortable with it either.

“I’ll do my best.” He slapped Cas on the shoulder and heaved his bag further up his back. “Good luck, buddy.”

He hurried after Sam and didn’t look back as the garage door swung shut behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my first Spn story (of many, I hope), and I want to do the boys justice, so if ever I make them sound out of character, please let me know so that I can fix it. Any and all constructive criticism is more than welcome, even actively encouraged, whether it's spelling, punctuation, flow, characterisation, or anything else I might be messing up. I like getting better at things and appreciate people who can help me with that, so don't be shy.
> 
> I hope that I've written a good story for you guys and that you enjoy it!


	2. Welcome to the Madhouse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Full disclosure, I have never been to Eufaula, Oklahoma. All I have to go on are Google Maps and a tourist board website, so please forgive any inaccuracies.

Sam waited inside the Impala, his nose buried in a folder full of newspaper clippings. He didn’t say a word as Dean dumped his bag in the trunk and got into the driver’s seat. The car dipped beneath Dean’s weight, and the door squeaked when he swung it shut, the heavy steel not designed to be quiet and gentlemanly. With a turn of the key, the engine roared to life then quietened to a deep rumble as Dean backed out of the spot and sped forward through the wide tunnel that led to the outside.

The Men of Letters bunker was a four-minute drive away from the nearest town, Lebanon, Kansas, which was so small that Dean could drive the entire length of it, while respecting the speed limit, in under two minutes.

Once they got to the highway, Dean asked, “Where to?”

“Eufaula, Oklahoma,” said Sam.

Dean took a left, barely bothering to slow down at the bend, and once on the main road, he changed gears, put his foot down, and enjoyed the high that came with soaring over the asphalt fast enough that any cop with a radar speed gun would do a double-take.

It was a few miles before Dean asked, “What’s in Oklahoma?”

Sam finally closed his folder. “On Monday, a small town went crazy. The number of violent crimes quadrupled in a day, then suddenly everything went quiet—nothing in the papers, no police reports, just total silence from the authorities.”

“So it's a ghost town?” Dean guessed.

“Not quite. I checked social media, and if anything,  Eufaula  is getting more mentions now than it ever has before.  Parties, street racing, people getting drunk before noon, and some darker stuff too.”

Dean shrugged  and pursed his lips.  “Maybe they’re celebrating.”

“Yeah, maybe.” Sam sighed loud enough to be heard over the engine. “I don’t know, man. It feels like our kind of thing.”

Even if it wasn’t, it didn’t matter because Sam  became less and less tense the farther they got from the bunker.  This case could be a wild goose chase, but so long as it kept the brothers busy, that was good enough for Dean. And if it really was nothing, they could always find another job to work. It was the beauty of the gig: there was always something to hunt.

“All right, then.  Eufaula, Oklahoma,  it is,”  said  Dean.

Sam nodded and leaned back in his seat, staring out the window. Dean turned up the music and settled in for a seven-hour drive.

*******

Eufaula, Oklahoma, population 2,813, had originated as a Muscogee Creek settlement and trading post after the U.S. Government forced the Creek to move to Indian Territory and cede their lands in the Southeastern United States in 1832. It evolved into a ranching centre after the arrival of the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad in 1872. Present-day Eufaula was located near Lake Eufaula, the largest capacity reservoir in Oklahoma, created in 1964, nicknamed the ‘gentle giant.’

Dean had known none of that this morning, but Sam decided to give him a history lesson while they drove down highway 69 and across a long-ass bridge that spanned the length of the lake. He might not have cared much for the history of the place, but he couldn’t deny that it was pretty to look at. Sam had mentioned that it was one of Oklahoma’s vacation destinations, and Dean could see why. Come peak season, this place would be swarming with tourists, but in late winter, it looked practically deserted.

A few miles later they drove past a sign that read, ‘Welcome to Eufaula Where Pride Creates Progress.’

The town looked nice. Dean had certainly seen worse, but his first impression was interrupted when a ninth generation Ford F-Series overtook him. The F-150 pickup truck sped past faster than even Dean would be comfortable driving down a suburban street, and less than a minute later, it swerved at a 90° angle. Dean braked—hard—and for a second, the sound of tires squealing was all that there was. Then the truck rolled, flipping over and over as glass shattered and metal warped, pelting down the road, leaving behind bits and pieces before it eventually settled on its roof.

“Holy shit,” Sam whispered. He clutched the dashboard, his arms so tense they looked like they might snap off.

Dean shut down his daze before it got the chance to take over. He threw open his door and jumped out of the car. The smell of burned rubber and radiator coolant assaulted Dean’s nose the minute he stepped onto the road as did the smell of fire and gasoline. _Not good._ He ran toward the crushed and twisted hunk of metal, glass crunching beneath his boots. Sam was right behind him, his uneven puffs of breath tickling Dean’s neck.

Dean slid to his knees on the glass-strewn asphalt beside the driver’s door on the other side of which a middle-aged guy with balding hair and a thick plaid jacket hung upside down. “Hey, man.”

No answer.

Dean reached into the car through the broken window and gave the guy a shake. The driver startled awake, gasping for breath and staring straight ahead with wide eyes. Behind Dean, Sam was on the phone to 911.

“You’re all right,” said Dean. “Can you move? You gotta undo your seat belt.”

The guy looked over, eyes glazed and unseeing, and gave a shaky nod. “Sure thing.”

With trembling hands, he reached up to the seat belt buckle, his shaking fingers struggling to find the strength to push down on the release button. Dean heard sirens in the distance, but they only sounded for a minute before cutting off mid-note. The driver finally managed to get himself under control enough to unfasten the seat belt. Dean reached in and protected the man’s head as he fell from his seat, landing in a heap on the cab’s roof.

The car groaned and whined as Dean helped the guy out of his truck. It was a narrow fit through the window, but a bit of heaving and pulling did the trick. Dean winced as he helped the guy to his feet, feeling the hot, sticky dampness of blood trickle down from his knees. He probably had a few shards of glass embedded in his skin, his threadbare jeans not enough to offer much protection. Sam rushed to the guy’s other side, and together he and Dean hobbled the man along until they were back at the Impala. The guy leaned heavily on the hood as the three of them caught their breath. Dean glanced around at the rows of houses on either side of the street, expecting a crowd of onlookers to have gathered, but save for the three of them, the street was deserted.

“Are you okay?” asked Sam. He ducked his head to catch the guy’s eye.

The James Dean wannabe nodded, and after another gulp of air, he burst out laughing. “Never better.”

Sam and Dean shared a look. Dean mouthed, “Shock.” Sam shrugged, his brow creased with worry. The guy carried on with his hysterics, giggling and snorting as though nothing had ever been funnier. That was when Dean smelled the booze on his breath, as well as a strong, skunky odour that clung to his hair and clothes. That explained it. He mimed drinking and smoking to Sam whose shoulders immediately dropped, his frown turning into one of disapproval, as though he were in a position to judge.

“Lucky for me that you two showed up, huh?” said Mr Stoner between giggles. “A regular pair of good samaritans.”

“Sir, you are aware that you shouldn’t drive while intoxicated,” said Sam in that tone of his that oozed dissatisfaction.

Old Tommy Chong guffawed. “Must have slipped my mind. I gotta say, it really took the edge off, though, you know? Made me feel like I was in a _Fast and Furious_ movie.”

“Almost complete with a fiery explosion,” said Dean as he checked his watch. This place should be swarming with authority figures by now. The firetrucks should have barrelled down Main Street minutes ago, followed by cop cars, ambulances, and maybe the odd news truck. But other than that first wail while they were getting the stone-head out of his ride, no other siren had sounded. “We should get you to a hospital.”

“Good idea,” said Sam.

Mr Stoner—Calvin, he said his name was—tried giving directions to the nearest place offering emergency care, but somehow ended up directing Dean to a drive-thru.

“I have a craving,” he explained as Sam glared at him over the backrest. Dean held back a snigger at Sam’s expression while Calvin ordered his full of French fries and chicken nuggets.

“Can we get you to the hospital now, or would you like us to make another stop first?” asked Sam once Calvin got his food, his tone tight and irritated.

Sitting in the backseat, surrounded by paper bags and with his mouth full, Calvin said, “Nah, I’m good. Thanks.”

Sam gave the directions this time, pulling up a map on his phone and ignoring Calvin who went off in a spiel about government spyware. Dean got to the clinic in record time, and Sam didn’t complain once about his total disregard for the speed limit. Hell, the minute the car was in park, Sam all but threw Calvin’s door open and quickly ushered him out.

Dean half-expected the small hospital to be empty. They hadn’t driven past a single person on the way here, and Dean’s ghost town theory was looking more and more plausible. He wanted to ask Calvin about it, but the guy was more likely to blame the aliens than give a straight answer. Fortunately, the clinic wasn’t empty. Unfortunately, it was over-crowded. It looked like half the town was here, packed between the blindingly bright white walls, adding the smell of sweat and blood to that of antiseptic. People shouted while others laughed, and some milled about, quietly staring off into the distance or down at their phones. There was barely room to move as toes were stepped on and upper bodies were elbowed. Dean had only ever seen a hospital look this chaotic in medical dramas after a major accident or catastrophe, which generally resulted in at least one person losing a limb. Speaking of which, the man standing next to Dean had a bloodied towel wrapped around his hand, and the woman behind him had a scowl etched onto her face and one hand wrapped around the guy’s collar while the other clutched a cooler box.

Sam stopped a woman wearing a white lab coat as she hurried past. “What’s going on here?”

The woman looked haggard—the bags under her eyes were worse than Sam’s, her dark hair escaped from her braid in clumps, and frown lines seemed to be permanently etched onto her forehead. “Sir, if you or one of your party have a minor injury, I’m afraid you’re going to have to wait. If it’s an emergency, there’s a makeshift trauma room out back.”

She made to leave, but Sam stopped her again. “Actually, we’re here to help.”

As the woman with the cooler box hauled Dean’s neighbour out the door and toward the back of the building, Sam and Dean took out their fake FBI badges and flipped them open. They hadn’t gotten the chance to change into their suits, but that didn’t seem to matter to the doctor who barely glanced at the badges before sagging.

Her frown disappeared with a sigh of relief. “Thank God. I was about to call the CDC. Follow me.”

She weaved her way through the crowd, and Sam hurried after her, mumbling apologies as he pushed past clusters of people. Dean turned to Calvin who swayed from side to side, clutching a bag of nuggets to his chest.

“All right, man, end of the line,” he said. “You stay here until a doctor or nurse comes to see you. Got it?”

Calvin nodded, his face set in firm lines. “Thank you. You saved my life; I owe you.” There were tears in his eyes as he reached into his bag and handed Dean a nugget. “Here.”

Dean rubbed his mouth, wiping away his smile. He was set on refusing the offering, but Calvin grabbed his hand and pressed the gift into his palm, closing Dean’s fingers tightly around it. The fried batter squished against Dean’s skin, cold and soggy.

Dean gently pulled his hand out of Calvin’s. “Thanks.”

“No.” Calvin shook his head as marijuana-induced tears ran down his unshaven cheeks. “Thank _you_.”

This guy thought his life was worth a single chicken nugget, and Dean could no longer hold back his smile. “Take care.”

He spotted Sam, easily visible above the crowd, turning left down the hall, and followed. He had to elbow his way through and received a few jabs himself, but once out of the reception area and down the hall, he stepped through a metal door marked, ‘Personnel Only.’ This corridor was notably less crowded with only the odd nurse or doctor speed-walking or ambling past. Half of them looked as rushed off their feet as the first doctor had, while the other half strolled around, whistling or laughing.

Dean walked past a supply closet but jumped back when something heavy fell against the closed door. The metal groaned beneath the weight of whatever was pushing against it almost covering the sound of laboured breathing coming from within.

Dean glanced up and down the corridor, checking that the coast was clear. He rested his hand on the butt of his gun, ready to draw it if necessary, and in one fluid motion, he threw open the door. A flurry of white wooshed past him and fell to the floor with a thud and a curse.

“What the hell was that for?” shouted a partially undressed man as he struggled beneath the weight of an attractive redhead who was equally lacking in clothing.

Dean’s eyes widened and his mouth fell open as he took in the couple he’d just interrupted. “Sorry. I was—I thought…”

“No need to apologise, sugar,” said the woman between heavy breaths. Her friend tried to cover himself up using both of their lab coats, but it wasn’t easy with her lounging on top of him, not caring a bit about her current state of undress. “Were you hoping to catch the show?”

Dean chuckled awkwardly, feeling his skin grow warm beneath her leering smile. “I heard the banging, and I thought someone might be stuck in there.”

“Sure, you did.” She grinned and pushed to her feet. Dean kept his eyes glued to her face, resisting any temptation to glance elsewhere, which only made her smile grow. She inched closer until she was barely an inch away. “You could join us if you’d like.”

Dean took a moment to consider whether he’d just stepped onto the set of a porno. Sure, he’d had women offer him threesomes before, but never in this kind of environment with this level of sobriety. He was so thrown out of his rhythm that he couldn’t decide if he was turned on or not, although most indicators pointed to yes.

The redhead bit down on her lip and slinked back a step, giving Dean a better view of what she was offering. He couldn’t help his gaze from sliding down, over her unbuttoned blouse, lace bra and rumpled skirt. Her lab coat hung off one shoulder like a kinky negligée, and her hair had that mussed sex hair look. Then Dean’s gaze fell lower still down her bare legs then off to the side where movement caught his attention. The redhead's partner sat up, his trousers now zipped and buckled although his shirt was still mostly undone. He didn’t look so thrilled with the woman’s proposition—sitting cross-legged at her feet, staring down at his clutched hands, his lips drawn in a firm, sulking line.

Dean glanced up the hall where his brother and that other doctor had disappeared then looked back to the redhead. “Tempting, but I don’t think that supply closet will fit three.”

She laughed and flipped her hair over her shoulder. “Fair point.” Taking another step back, she flicked her tongue over her lips as her eyes trailed over him. “Such a shame. But there’s always next time, right?”

“I sure as hell hope so,” he said, a twinge of disappointment pinging through him, but he had a job to do, and now wasn’t the time for a hook-up, no matter how much fun that might be. Later, though…

The woman must have had the same thought because she reached into her pocket and pulled out a pen and notepad. She scribbled something on a sheet of paper then tore it off and handed it to Dean.

“For next time,” she said as Dean read her name—Trisha—and number from the paper.

He grinned and made a show of carefully tucking the note into his coat pocket. “For next time."

With a nod of farewell, he walked around Trisha and the guy still slumped at her feet only to jump forward with a surprised gasp when she slapped his ass hard enough to make it sting. It took his brain half a second to reboot during which he stood frozen, trying to figure out if that had actually happened. A glance over his shoulder revealed the most coquettish smile he had ever seen, accompanied by a sultry wink. Dean gave a wavering smile back along with a little wave as he got over the shock, but he upped the pace as he walked away. Ass slapping was all well and good, but there was a time and place for it, and doing it to a stranger in an unexpected environment wasn’t the way to go about it.

The clinic’s subpar soundproofing led him to Sam. He knocked once on the door, and the doctor must have been standing by it because not a second later it flew open.

“I thought you might have gotten lost,” she said, looking even more frazzled than earlier.

She ushered him into the office. Sam sat in a frayed leather chair in front of a desk stacked high with files and paperwork. The desktop computer made a low thrumming noise that hiccoughed every few seconds with a dull clunking sound. Behind the desk stood another chair as well as a bookshelf that covered the entire wall. There was a second door in front of Dean on the other side of the room that must have led to a waiting room if the exam table was anything to go by.

“No, just ran into a woman named Trisha,” said Dean. “Stopped for a talk.”

The doctor’s face fell with a sigh and a frown. “And how long did it take for her to proposition you?”

Sam managed to turn his laugh into a cough as Dean floundered, mouth opening and closing, scrambling to find a reply, but the doctor wasn’t looking for one.

“She’s married, you know?” she said. “Happily. Or at least she was last week before she started sleeping with every attractive man she came close to.”

“I didn't know,” said Dean.

The doc nodded, eyes downcast and distant. “Her husband is one of our local firefighters. He was taken to Oklahoma City for major surgery after he jumped into oncoming traffic two days ago.”

“Did he jump because of—” He hooked his thumb over his shoulder toward the direction in which Trisha was having all kinds of extramarital fun.

“No.” She shook her head as her lips twisted into a bitter smile. “Apparently, he just ‘felt like it’.”

Dean frowned. “He ‘felt like’ jumping in front of a car?”

“Like I’ve been telling your partner: over the past few days things have been out of sorts around here. People aren’t acting like themselves. They’ve become reckless and dangerous—drinking, gambling, cheating on spouses, leaving kids unsupervised, driving like maniacs, jumping in front of cars, hurting themselves and others… It’s as though ninety per cent of the town lost their minds overnight.”

“Do you remember what day this happened?” asked Sam.

The doctor walked around her desk, running a hand through her knotted hair, and collapsed in her chair. “Monday. Everything was fine on Sunday, but the minute I woke up on Monday, it was different. It started slow. Some people were more affected than others right from the start, and they’ve only gotten worse since.”

The frown lines on Sam’s forehead deepened. “Did anything happen around that time that might have caused this?”

The doctor scoffed, “I don’t even know what _this_ is.” With a sigh, she ran her hand through her hair again. Her fingers caught on a knot, and she yanked hard enough that even Dean winced. “There was a game on Sunday. Football. Nothing major, but the entire town showed up for it. It’s the only thing I can think of, but it was all ordinary. Nothing strange happened.”

That she would notice. But civilians had a way of missing things, especially when they pointed to a supernatural entity.

“You said this isn’t affecting everyone,” said Dean. “Is there anything you have in common with the others who aren't affected?”

Her dark eyes went distant again. She was probably mid to late thirties at most, but the stress lines added a decade on top of that. “Not as far as I can tell.”

Dean moved toward the spare chair next to Sam’s to take his weight off his wounded knees. The movement drew the doctor’s gaze down to his blood-stained jeans, and she jumped out of her chair like a startled cat.

“You’re hurt,” she said. She rushed around the desk and bustled Dean toward the exam table, ignoring his protests.

It was just a bit of glass, which he was perfectly capable of dealing with himself, but she wouldn’t hear it.

“Take off your shoes and trousers,” she said once she had him backed up against the table.

He was about to argue again, but he saw her hands twitch and figured that if he didn’t do it himself, she might. He crouched to unlace his boots, and when she was sure that he was doing as he was told, she hurried off to the line of cabinets and counters behind him. Dean kicked off one shoe then the other, unbuttoned and unzipped his jeans, and pushed them down. He held back a wince as he shoved them past his knees where he dislodged a shard of glass that tinkled as it hit the floor.

“Hop up,” she said, nodding to the table.

Dean did so before she got the idea to help him along, feeling a painful throb as he put weight on the cheek Trisha had hit. The paper towel crinkled beneath him as he laid back and let her get to work. To her credit, she was very good at her job. Dean was cleaned and patched up in record time. He hadn’t cut himself too badly, which helped. It was just going to sting for a while and make crouching, walking, driving, and getting down on his knees uncomfortable. Other than that, though, he would be just fine.

Cas could have fixed him up no problem, leaving not even a scar behind when he was done. But Cas wasn’t here—he had better things to worry about, so Dean would have to make do.

When the doctor went to throw away the bloodied gauze, Dean slid from the table and got dressed. He was lacing up his boots when shouting sounded on the other side of the patient room door.

“They’re not supposed to be in there,” said the doctor. She glared at the door as though that might make the arguing stop. It was a good glare, but not that good.

It took only a moment for the argument to escalate with a slap, thud, and crash. Dean ran for the door and threw it open to find three big guys in the middle of a brawl. One lay in the shattered remains of a glass table while the other two danced. It only took one right hook from the biggest guy, though, to send the other flying through a closed door. The wood shattered from the force of it, hinges snapping off, and the guy fell into the reception area, which was suffering from the same situation as the waiting room. Fists flew as people attacked anyone within reach with grins on their faces and mad gleams of glee in their eyes.

The doctor stepped up beside Dean as one man threw another over the reception desk.

With a loud, put-upon sigh, she said, “Welcome to the madhouse.”


	3. Mr Gucci Chicken Wings

As Sam and Dean joined the melee in the clinic reception area, hoping to break up the fight and diffuse the situation, Dean realised two things. One: the people of Eufaula, Oklahoma, had a lot of repressed anger just waiting to burst out. And two: Doctor Sarah Idris did not mess around. While the brothers struggled through the crowd, dodging punches and doing their best to incapacitate without causing any serious harm, the doc walked back into her office and came out carrying a shotgun. She aimed for the ceiling and pulled the trigger. The shot rang out through the room, and everyone froze mid-action, gazes swinging to the little woman with the big gun.

“This is a hospital,” the doc said, forcing the words out through gritted teeth as she glared daggers around the room, “a place of healing, not a boxing ring or fighting pit. If you cannot behave accordingly, kindly, get out.”

Dean had never before seen so many full-grown men shuffling their feet and staring down at their toes like little kids caught under their mother’s glare. Mumbled apologies rustled around the room, and nervous gazes flicked up to check the doc’s reaction. Sarah locked gazes with every person present, and none dared hold eye contact for more than a few seconds. When she eventually relaxed her grip on the gun, a relieved sigh rippled through the crowd as though some of them had been entertaining the possibility that she might actually shoot them. As everyone went back to whatever it was they’d been doing before the brawl had broken out, Sam and Dean walked back over to Sarah.

“Nice gun for a place of healing,” said Sam when he and Dean reached her.

He wasn’t wrong. The Browning Automatic 5 was a must-own classic for any gun-enthusiast, but Sarah didn’t hold it with the appreciation it deserved. She knew how to shoot, that much was clear from her posture and her firm grip on the barrel, but she held the gun at a distance from her body, tension running down her arm to her fingers and back again.

She sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. “It’s one of my dad’s. I borrowed it after the second fight happened.”

“So this has been going on a lot?” asked Dean. He rubbed a hand over his upper arm where someone had hit him. Less than an hour in, and he already had cut knees, a bruised backside, and a sore arm—that had to be some sort of a record, even for him.

Sarah glanced pointedly up at the ceiling, and the boys followed her gaze to the pockmarked plaster. Dark against the blinding whiteness, the holes and cracks were the only flaws in the otherwise pristine room. A few of the fissures had been hastily patched up, the joint compound a sickly yellowish colour and lumpy under the glaring fluorescent lamps. Most hadn’t, though, and Dean stopped counting the holes after he reached twenty.

“It’s worse when they gather in a crowd,” said Sarah. “They egg each other on, and when one goes off the rails, the others are quick to follow.”

Dean nodded—he’d been in enough bar fights to know the truth of that. “They seem to calm down pretty quickly, though.”

“For now.” She lowered her eyes from the ceiling as her features scrunched up, eyebrows bunching and lips thinning. “But it’s been getting worse.”

Dean shot another glance at the ceiling, then down to Sarah’s Browning and over to the crowd. How long before things got out of hand, and one of those shots had to be fired at a person? Sarah followed his gaze, and her breath shook on her next exhale as her thoughts matched his.

“You mentioned calling the CDC,” said Sam. “You think whatever’s causing this is a disease?”

She heaved a sigh and let her eyes wander over the room. “I don’t know what else it could be. I’ve run all the tests that I can—blood works, CT scans, MRIs… Some of the behavioural symptoms are similar to the ones you might see in cases of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, but even spinal fluid tests came back negative.”

Dean frowned and pursed his lips around the unfamiliar words but failed to figure out what they meant. “Sorry, bovine… what?”

“Bovine spongiform encephalopathy. Mad cow disease,” she explained. “The psychosis fits, but only at a stretch, and physically, there’s nothing wrong with them, so…”

“Right.” Supernatural mad cow disease; that would be a new one.

“Well, thank you for your help.” Sam held out his hand to shake the doctor’s, his giant paw dwarfing her far smaller one. “We’ll be in touch.”

Sam and Dean started for the front door, but Dean was quick to turn back around. “I’ve been wanting to ask: where is everyone? We drove around town for at least half an hour and didn’t spot anyone.”

“Downtown,” said Sarah. She looked incredibly small and tired, leaning against the doorframe, gripping her shotgun. “That’s where the biggest crowd is. Everyone else is either here, or they’ve skipped town.”

“Downtown. Gotcha.” Which meant he and Sam could snoop around the rest of the town with relative ease and privacy.

The brothers left the clinic in Doctor Idris’s capable, but weary hands and stepped up to the Impala. As Dean opened the driver’s side door, Sam crossed his arms on top of the roof and looked over at him. “Any idea what we’re dealing with?”

Dean mimicked his brother’s stance. “I got no clue. You?”

“Best guess says witch,” he said, fingers drumming against the cold steel. “But what I don’t get is the motive. What’s the endgame?”

Dean thought back to Trisha, half-naked and leering at him. “Fun?”

“Fun?” Sam smiled, but it was strained and humourless. “People are dying.”

“Yeah, but you saw Calvin. He had a smile on his face the entire time—”

Sam scoffed, “Because he was high.”

“—And so did those people at the clinic. The only ones who are miserable are the ones who aren’t affected. Everyone else is having a great time.” Dean felt the folded paper bearing Trisha’s number weighing down his coat pocket and held back a smile as he considered how happy he might get to be later today.

“Fine.” Sam huffed. “Maybe it is for fun. But pulling something like this off takes serious juice. There’s got to be more to it than simple entertainment.”

Dean shook his head and lowered himself into the car, hiding his wince as his knees and backside cried out in protest. “You just don’t know how to have a good time.”

Sam followed suit, practically folding himself in half to get through the low door. “So smoking pot and totalling a car is your idea of a good time?”

Dean shrugged, and it was his arm’s turn to give him hell for it. “It has its merits.”

Sam heaved a sharp breath, but a dash of light snuck into his smile. “All right, George Michael.”

Dean frowned over at his brother, adding in the appropriate dash of disappointment to the look he threw him. “A _Wham!_ reference, Sam? Really?

“They’re a classic,” he said, voice rising as he tried to defend his poor tastes.

“They were a boy band,” said Dean with a note of finality because that fact alone ought to clear up the entire matter.

Sam thought differently, though, because he turned and said, “Technically, Led Zeppelin was a boy band too.”

Dean jabbed his finger in the direction of Sam’s face, coming close to taking the guy’s eye out. “You take that back.”

A laugh bubbled up from Sam’s throat, and the sound almost made Dean forget the blasphemy that had come out of his mouth. “Whatever, man,” said Sam, the grin sticking to his face even as he tried to wipe it away. “We’ve still got to find out what’s going on in this town and put a stop to it.”

“Party pooper,” Dean muttered as a smile tugged at his lips. He’d had it right—a case was exactly what they needed. “I say we check out that football field. Do a sweep and hopefully cross a few of the usual suspects off our list.”

As Sam agreed, Dean turned the key in the ignition.

The football field was on the outskirts of town, next to the high school, which looked deserted despite it being a school day. The boys split up—Sam took the changing rooms and offices while Dean stayed outside in the stands. After an hour of peering under benches and rummaging through trash cans, Dean found—

“Bubkes,” he said, as he and Sam met up at the car. “No hex bags, no sulphur, no EMF. You?”

Sam shook his head. “Nothing but dirty socks and gum wrappers.”

“Which either means no witches, no demons, and no ghosts, or…”

“Or this isn’t ground zero,” Sam finished for him. He looked out over the empty field with a frown.

Dean sighed and rubbed his hands down his face. “Which means we’ve got to do a sweep of the whole town.” It wasn’t a big town, but a thorough check was still going to take longer than Dean cared to contemplate. “Super. I want food first.”

Sam turned back to Dean with a wane smile. “I figured. I saw a diner on the way here. Hopefully, they have wireless, and maybe we can narrow this search down a bit.”

Dean nodded and pulled open the car door. “Sounds like a plan.”

*******

They had to venture downtown to find a place to eat. The diner Sam had spotted on the way to the football field was a no-go, with shattered windows, graffitied walls, broken chairs and plates, and suspicious stains on the floor. They tried a few more places on the edge of town but found much the same. Everywhere was either vandalised, boarded up, or deserted. So the brothers headed to where they knew they’d find people.

Dean drove slow, waiting to see the hordes Sarah had mentioned, but the closer they got to the town centre, the more likely it seemed that everyone had skipped town. The sun dipped below the horizon, and the streetlights flicked on, yet none of the houses showed any signs of light or life. But then the Impala rounded a corner, and the townsfolk suddenly sprang into existence. People walked up and down the wide road of Main Street, carrying beer bottles and cocktail glasses. Others sat on the sidewalks, smoking joints and cigarettes, while couples stood, pressed up against the sides of buildings, making out. Fires burned in trash cans to drive away the February chill, but the cold seemed to be the last thing on everyone’s mind. One man dressed in nothing but compression shorts sat at the feet of a woman wearing a Little Mermaid costume. A bunch of guys wore skirts, and one woman had gone all out with a full-on ball gown, puffy skirt and all. Everywhere Dean looked, he saw brightly coloured hair and flashy makeup as well as improbable outfits and smiles on every face.

“It looks like Mardi Gras out there,” he said, letting the car idle in the middle of the road.

“Your theory about this all being for fun and entertainment is looking more and more likely,” said Sam as he quickly turned his gaze away from a scantily-clad woman passing by his window, a blush creeping up his neck.

Dean snorted, flung his arm over the back of the seat, and looked out through the back window as he reversed into a parking spot.

The brothers stepped out of the car to the sound of loud conversations, peals of laughter, and music blasting out of speakers. The smell of smoke filled the air, almost masking the stink of weed, sweat, and alcohol, which blended together in a nauseating mix that had Dean’s stomach churning. He scrunched up his nose as he closed the Impala door, but then one guy walked past him carrying one of those fancy designer handbags filled to the brim with chicken wings. Dean stared after him, stomach now grumbling as the smell of fried chicken lingered in the air, overpowering everything else.

He glanced over at Sam, who was busy surveying the crowd with a frown. “Come on.”

They followed Mr Gucci chicken wings into the masses—a few hundred strong, all intoxicated with one substance or another, riding a high that teetered on a razor’s edge.

Dean wasn’t about to forget what had happened at the clinic. These people seemed happy enough now, but that could change at a moment’s notice, turning the entire street into a riot scene. Evidence of past disturbances still lingered everywhere he looked. If he’d thought that the diners on the outskirts of town had looked bad, it was nothing compared to what every building here had suffered. It wasn’t immediately apparent beneath the outlandishness of the people, but the street itself looked like the city setting of _The Purge_. Fires blazed in shop windows. Not a single door remained whole. Rude words and drawings had been spray-painted onto walls, which looked like someone had come at them with a pickaxe.

It was enough to set Dean’s nerves on edge.

His gaze darted around, mapping out escape routes and worse case scenarios, when someone grabbed his coat collar and dragged him down. His brain had a split second to register blonde hair and a pretty face before warm lips pressed against his. Shocked but always up for a kiss, he returned it, hands sliding over her waist as her tongue sneaked into his gaping mouth. As far as stress relief went, it was pretty good, and by the time the kiss ended, Dean felt downright content.

The woman pulled away far enough for him to glimpse brown eyes and a dimpled grin. “Hi,” she said, still clutching on to his coat.

He returned her smile with a slow one of his own as he recovered from the unexpected make-out session. “Hi.”

“You’re hot.” There was no distance at all between them, but she somehow managed to press closer, grinding against him.

Dean gave a modest shrug even as his smile grew into a not so modest grin, but before he could say a word, Sam barked his name, his voice sounding like the crack of a whip over the hubbub. Dean snapped to attention, looking like he’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar, and spotted Sam standing a few feet away, glaring at him.

“Gotta go,” he said to the blonde, gently detaching himself from her hold.

Her expression fell, pushing out her bottom lip in a pout better suited to a two-year-old. “Boo. We could’ve had so much fun.”

He threw her an apologetic smile as he stepped around her toward his brother. “Maybe some other time.”

She grabbed his arm and pulled him to a halt with a surprising amount of strength for someone who was half a foot shorter than him. Manhandling his palm toward her, she grabbed a pen from her purse and started scribbling on his hand. “I’m going to hold you to that.”

With a wink and a flick of her hair, she disappeared into the crowd. Dean chuckled as he looked down at the phone number scrawled onto his palm and wondered if he could convince Sam to give this town a chance. One look at his brother’s sour expression suggested not.

Sam rolled his eyes and stalked off through the crowd, and Dean followed, wearing a somewhat smug expression.

Despite the state of the street, a couple of places were still open. One was a bar at the end of the  road, and the other, surprisingly, was the library that sat next to it. 

The bar was even more crowded than the clinic had been, but a bit of pushing got Sam and Dean to a tall table cluttered with empty glasses. The low light filled the room with shadows, and smoke clung to the air as people ignored the ‘No smoking’ signs. Anyone farther than a few feet away was distorted, a blurred outline against the dark backdrop. The street might have been noisy, but this place was deafening, with too many people talking and laughing way too loudly. A headache started to pulse behind Dean’s temples, and he was almost willing to forgo food in favour of a nice, quiet motel room. Almost.

Despite the crowd, a waitress  with tattoos running up her arms and piercings lining her ears got to them almost as soon as they sat down. “What can I get for you boys?”

“A veggie wrap for him, and a bacon burger for me,” said Dean. “Oh, and two beers.”

“Not for me,” said Sam.

Dean glanced over at him, then back at the waitress. “Yeah, so two beers.”

Sam smiled and shook his head as he took his laptop from his bag. The waitress nodded and flashed them a smile, turning to leave when Sam called her back.  “How come the library next door is still open?”

Her smile grew.  “Because when a group of people tried to ransack the place, the librarian fought them all off with her umbrella.  If you guys want to be the first to tag the place, I’d think twice. Miss Delaney  was near-lethal with a flowery little umbrella,  but  now she keeps a baseball bat by the front desk.”

Sam guffawed, and Dean whistled. “This town, man.”

The waitress disappeared into the crowd but returned not two minutes later with two pints of beer for Dean and a jug of water for Sam. It took a little longer for the food to arrive, and it wasn’t really worth the wait, but at least it was a hot meal that hadn’t been heated up in a microwave.

Dean dug into his burger, eyes scanning the rowdy crowd until Sam stopped typing and said, “Here we go.”

Dean turned his attention to his brother whose face looked pale in the computer light, the bags under his eyes all the more pronounced.

“I couldn't find anything in the town history that might explain what’s going on, but I had a hunch that might help us narrow it down. I looked up which out of town team played here last Sunday and checked that town for anything weird.”

Dean nodded and swallowed his mouthful. “Because if the football pitch really is where this thing started, this town won’t be the only one going nuts. What d’you find?”

“It’s not as widespread and not nearly as violent, but it’s there. One guy went to work naked; another blew half his kid’s college fund to rent a room and hire two dozen hookers to spend the night.”

Dean’s eyebrows shot up to his hairline. “Two dozen?”

Sam nodded, and Dean’s mind whirred with scenarios, but he quickly had to stop as his jeans started getting tighter.

He cleared his throat and shifted on his stool. “So we know where ground zero is. But that place was clean.”

“Maybe we missed something.” Sam shrugged, eyes fixed on the screen. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

Dean chugged the rest of his beer. There was nothing worse than a supernatural being that knew how to hide its tracks. “We’ll head back there tomorrow morning and do another sweep.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay! I got caught up with my exams, but now that those are over I’ll hopefully manage to stick to a strict posting schedule. 
> 
> A huge thank you to everyone who's left comments, kudos, or bookmarked this story—you know how to make my day!


	4. An Officer in Uniform

Zip, nada, and zilch. That was what they found at the football field the next morning. It wouldn’t have been so bad had they not gotten up before the crack of dawn to do the second sweep, freezing their asses off in the dark so that no one saw them and got suspicious. No one had been hanging around the football field yesterday, and Dean held the not-so-quiet certainty that no one would have gone there today either. But Sam had refused to budge, and given the state of him, Dean hadn’t pushed all that hard either.

Beneath the too-bright lights of the diner, the bags under Sam’s eyes stood out like bruises, dark purple against pale skin and bloodshot eyes. This case worked as a good enough distraction during the day, but at night there was nothing to stop his mind from dragging up the nightmares. Sam didn’t say a word about it, though, just downed his fourth cup of coffee and attacked the case like it was his only mission in life.

“Ghost sickness?” he said. “Maybe we’ve got a Buruburu on our hands again. Some guy who partied hard before he bit it.”

Dean shook his head and turned back to his hash browns and bacon. “Those things follow a pattern.” He would know; that was one bad trip he wasn’t likely to ever forget. “The same symptoms over and over. This place has people doing all kinds of stuff—no pattern in sight; otherwise, we might actually be getting somewhere.”

Sam leaned back in the booth, running his hands through his hair with a groan as his gaze skipped over the interior of the diner. They’d found this place while looking for a motel last night. It sat at the edge of town, along the highway, half-hidden by a grove of trees. Not the best location for a diner, but it was a safe enough distance away from downtown that it had been mostly spared in terms of damage—which wasn’t to say that the place wasn’t in a sorry state, just that whatever was going on around here couldn’t be blamed for it. The sticky linoleum floor looked like it hadn’t been mopped since the ‘60s. The foam padding of the floor-mounted bar stools escaped through cracks in the synthetic leather. The flimsy wooden door to the bathroom had indistinguishable words and shapes drawn onto it in Sharpie pen. Similar drawings covered the long counter and the booth tables, half of which were lopsided and wobbly.

All in all, it wasn’t the worst place Dean had ever eaten at. Far from it. And it had the added advantage of privacy.

It wasn’t empty, but the other occupants were otherwise occupied. The middle-aged waitress, who smelled strongly of cheap whisky, kept disappearing into the kitchen, a silver flask clutched in her hand. The old guy in the corner rocked back and forth as he ordered one serving of French fries after the next until even Dean wondered how he could stomach it. The couple in the booth across from the boys’ was making out like there was no tomorrow, looking like they were two minutes away from putting on a free show. No one paid the brothers any attention—except for the waitress who strode out with a pot of lukewarm coffee every ten minutes—so they didn’t need to lower their voices as they talked about the things that went bump in the night.

“What about demons?” said Dean. “Like that case we worked years ago in Ohio. The half-dead factory town that turned into a haven for gamblers and drinkers after a couple of demons possessed a priest and the hot bartender.”

Sam nodded, eyes distant as he remembered, and a crease formed between his eyebrows. “Right, they talked to some people, got the right businesses involved, and it made the townspeople succumb to their basic instincts.”

“Kinda like what’s happening here.”

“But it took the demons months to cause that level of moral depravity. According to Doctor Idris, it happened overnight here.”

Dean had to concede that point. Things had been quiet on the demon front of late, ever since Sam’s showdown with Kip, the would-be King of Hell. How that guy had expected to rule anything with a name like that, Dean wasn’t sure, but whatever his name, he was no longer on the playing field, and it seemed that without proper leadership, Hell wasn’t all that big of a threat.

Grey morning light slowly seeped in through the streak-marked windows, adding a dull sheen to the greasy tables and floor. Outside, in the small, dirt parking lot, a cop car idled as the driver, dressed in full ceremonial uniform, chugged from a bottle wrapped in a paper bag, occasionally flipping on the car’s lights and sirens for no obvious reason and listening to god-awful rap music loud enough for Dean to hear.

Dean shook his head and muttered, “What the hell is going on in this town?”

“I still like the witch theory,” said Sam as he slipped his laptop from his bag. “No hex bag doesn’t mean no witch, not if they’re smart enough to cover their tracks.”

“Only thing worse than a witch is a smart witch,” said Dean, repeating a thought he’d had yesterday. “Should we call Rowena?”

“No, not unless we have to.” A strained note slipped into his voice, and he kept his eyes glued to the computer screen as he added, “She deserves a break.”

Dean drank down the dregs of his cold coffee, too in need of caffeine to be picky about where he got it from. “How’s she doing?”

Rowena had left the bunker in a hurry after Jack had exorcised Michael out of her and destroyed him. Sam had tried to check her for injuries, but she’d brushed him off, packed her bag, and left, shaking like a leaf the entire time.

“You really need to ask?” said Sam, his voice quiet as he briefly glanced up from his laptop.

The muscles in Dean’s shoulders tightened to the point where pain shot down his back as his mind flashed through memories from the moment he’d said ‘yes’ to Michael to everything that had followed. Playing ride-along with an archangel had felt like being stuck on a dinghy on top of Point Nemo during a tropical cyclone—deafening and uncontrollable and beyond any and all help. ‘Dangerous’ didn’t begin to cover it; ‘terrifying’ didn’t come close. It was beyond words, and it had _hurt_. Dean might have been Michael’s perfect vessel, but just because he could sustain the archangel didn’t mean that it hadn’t felt like every cell in his body was being torn apart and soldered back together over and over again.

“Guess not,” he said.

The waitress emerged from the kitchen and stopped off at each table to refill coffee cups. When she got to the boys, Dean leaned back on the bench to give her room and avoid any accidental sloshing. The vinyl squeaked beneath him as he shifted, and his hand touched a particularly sticky spot on the table. His lip curled as he drew his hand back, and he gingerly wiped it off on the lapels of his fed jacket. He managed a terse smile for the waitress as she frowned at him, but her furrowed brow turned into a scowl, and she walked away. Dean shrugged it off and kept rubbing his hand against the cheap fabric of his suit until the last of the gunk was gone. All the while, Sam kept his focus on the laptop as he downed his coffee in one, shoulders set in a tense line, and eyes distant and shuttered ever since Dean had brought up Rowena.

Dean heaved a sigh. _In for a dime, in for a dollar._ “Listen, Sam—”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“I get that, but—”

“No.” He closed his laptop with enough force to make the table rattle and for Dean’s coffee to spill over the rim of his cup. “They ran away from their home to be safe. Maggie, Jim, Corina, Jessie, Damien, and Oliver. They left everything behind so that they wouldn’t die at the hands of angels. We promised to protect them from that. I promised them that they would be safe. They trusted me. And look where that got them.”

“It wasn’t your fault.”

Sam scoffed and shook his head. A bright gleam covered his eyes as he looked out the window, and his jaw worked, teeth grinding hard enough that Dean was convinced he could hear them over the drone of the lights and the sloppy make-out sounds coming from the couple on the other side of the diner.

Dean leaned forward, but any impromptu speech was interrupted by the tinkling of the bell over the front door. He turned to see that the cop had left his cruiser and that although the man’s top half was covered in his formal uniform, he’d picked out a pair of blue nylon leggings and bright orange leg-warmers to go with it. Dean stared and hid a snigger behind a cough. He turned to see Sam’s reaction before remembering where their conversation had been at, and any trace of good humour vanished from his face.

The waitress leaned out through the kitchen door, and her sour expression softened slightly as she caught sight of the officer. “Hey, Pete.”

“All right there, Connie?” asked Pete. He swayed as he walked to the counter like he was walking on the deck of a ship.

Connie shrugged and wiped her hands on her apron. Dean wasn't sure what good that would do seeing that he couldn't tell what colour the fabric had originally been beneath all the stains. “What can I get you?”

“Coffee to-go.” Dean turned away from the conversation, ready to tune it out, but then Pete added, “Just got a call from dispatch.”

Dean tilted his head to listen, and Sam slowly turned away from the window to do the same.

Pete didn’t lower his voice as he said, “Maisie Green’s been taken to the station.”

Connie frowned at the name, hands stalling as she grabbed a lid for the carton coffee cup. “The school teacher?”

“That’s the one. According to dispatch, she went after her husband with a meat tenderiser.” As Connie handed Pete his coffee, he said, “How ‘bout some doughnuts, too? I have a craving.”

Sam and Dean turned to one another at the same time, and Dean said, “Marital spat?”

“In this town?” Sam shook his head, bagged his laptop, and slid out of the booth. “Come on.”

*******

The police station was in much the same state as the clinic had been. The waiting room held no receptionist at the information desk, but plenty of people crowded there demanding attention. Sam and Dean bypassed all of them as they ignored the ‘No public allowed’ signs. Every dark corner on the way to the upper floor seemed to hide someone jacking off or a couple working their way toward a higher base. In the office area, the desks and chairs had been moved to create a boxing ring, in the middle of which two beer-bellied officers wrestled as a large circle of colleagues cheered them on. The holding cells and drunk tanks were full to the brim of people shouting curses or laughing hysterically. And in the midst of all that chaos, some poor bastards kept trying to do their jobs.

“So Mrs Green attacked her husband because he never did the dishes?” Dean asked.

The young deputy nodded, his eyes wide and pleading. “It doesn’t make any sense. I know Mrs Green. She was my teacher in elementary school. She and her husband’ve been married since before I was born, and they never fought—no reports of domestic abuse; no noise complaints from the neighbours.”

Dean pocketed his pen and notepad. “Doesn’t mean they weren’t having troubles.”

“But it’s happening to everyone.” Deputy Matt Warner’s voice shook, and he fidgeted with his sleeve as he said, “This isn’t…It isn’t normal.”

Dean noticed the look in Matt’s eyes—the look that said that he knew that there was no rational answer behind what was going on here. Dean had seen that look so many times, and it always made his chest tighten. It was a look that said that he’d failed. He was supposed to protect these people from the things that went bump in the night, and that meant keeping them from ever finding out about the monsters and demons. Matt was scared. Doctor Sarah Idris was scared. Every person in this town who wasn’t affected by whatever was going on was scared. And Dean didn’t know how to fix it.

“Look,” he said with all the confidence and authority he could muster. “My partner and I are here to help. We’ll figure out what’s going on, and we’ll make it stop.”

Matt nodded, but the worry didn’t ease from his features, and his shoulders didn’t drop. He’d peeked through the looking glass, and there was no coming back from that, not ever. Dean sighed, patted Matt on the arm, and turned on his heel, finding Sam, who waited for him in the dull grey stairwell.

“We need to figure out what’s going on in this town,” said Dean as he rubbed a hand over his face.

Sam nodded. “I agree, and I think I know where to look next.”

Dean lowered his hand and raised his eyebrows. “Don’t tell me someone here was actually helpful.”

Sam scoffed and pulled a folded piece of paper from his coat pocket. “No. But while I was looking for Maisie Green’s file—which there isn’t one, by the way—I found this.” He handed the sheet to Dean, who glanced down at it. It was a photocopy of a death certificate.

“James Aaron?” Dean read. “Who’s James Aaron?”

“No one. A petty criminal. Got booked a few times for shoplifting, breaking and entering, theft… Nothing huge, but enough that he’s spent the past twenty years in and out of jail.”

“Okay…” Dean tried to connect the dots, but he was pretty sure there was nothing there to connect. “So?”

Sam pointed at the death certificate. “Look at the date. James Aaron died on Sunday, a few hours before all the crazy started. It could be nothing, or…”

“Or he could be patient zero.” Dean glanced from the paper to his brother. “Got an address?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The urge to write ‘chips’ instead of ‘fries’ was strong and hard to ignore, but I managed it. You might still find the odd British expression that slipped my notice, in which case: my apologies. I tried switching to American spelling but kept reverting to British, so I gave up on that. 
> 
> Also, it's unsurprisingly difficult to write from Dean's point of view when I have only a slightly greater knowledge of cultural references than Cas did in the earlier seasons, but I promise that I'm doing my best. If you guys have any hints and tips for that (other than actually watching all those movies) I'm all ears.
> 
> I hope you're all still enjoying this story! I'm going to take a little break from writing it while I deal with school, but I'll get back to posting chapters by the end of April.


	5. Crime Doesn’t Pay

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Previously (because I left it so long—sorry!—that even I couldn’t remember where this story was at):  
> Sam and Dean rolled into town and got a first-hand look at what happens when people do away with their self-restraint—including but not limited to: reckless driving, adultery, loss of limb, and Dean’s ego getting a boost from all the attention. Their first afternoon in town harboured no clues or leads, but the next morning in a less-than-pleasant dinner, a highly-fashionable police officer let slip some info that had the boys leaving for the station in a flash. Once there, they discovered a death certificate for a man who died right before the whole town went crazy—a potential patient zero.

James Aaron lived not far from downtown in a neighbourhood that had probably been in desperate need of renovations even before everyone and their mother turned into vandals. The rows of two-storey apartment buildings were covered in graffiti, their red brick walls chipped and crumbling. Tipped trash cans and broken furniture littered the street, while plastic bags and ripped paper fluttered with the breeze.

When Sam and Dean stepped out of the Impala and onto the curb in front of Aaron’s place, they heard the mob in the distance, a few short blocks away, but this street was deserted, empty and quiet, which made breaking and entering a cakewalk. Dean kept a lookout—a pointless job, but better safe than sorry—while Sam fiddled with the locks on the front door of the apartment building. It didn’t take long before Dean heard the telltale click and squeak of a lock disengaging and a door swinging open. He withdrew from the street and stepped under the building’s shadowy overhang, giving his brother a thumbs-up as they walked in.

Yellowing paint peeled from the walls and fell onto the small, cracked tiles of the narrow hallway floor, amassing in flaky, little piles that mixed in with dirt, mud, and dust. Long light fixtures flickered and whined overhead, drawing attention to the wires and cables visible through the missing ceiling panels.

Dean took it all in with a derisive tilt of his brows. “Nice place.”

Not so long ago, he wouldn’t have batted an eye at the neglect dripping from this building, but after living in the bunker, he’d developed standards. That change hadn’t come slow and steady. One night in a room of his own, and it was like a switch had flicked. He didn’t know what to make of that, so he tried not to think of it at all.

Sam huffed an agreement, eyeing a brown stain leaking down the wall. “Apparently crime doesn’t pay.”

“Not if you’re bad at it, it doesn’t.” Sam threw him a disapproving glare, but Dean only smiled. “What’s the apartment number?”

“2B,” he answered without having to check, and he glanced at the dent-covered elevator at the end of the hall. “Stairs?”

Dean took one look at the rusted steel, more orange than grey, and didn’t argue. He pushed open a flimsy door to his right, the ‘Stairs’ sign so scratched up he could barely read it. It took only a second for him to regret the decision. He screwed up his nose at the smell of stale cigarette smoke, but Sam nudged him through before he could take another breath of fresh air. ‘Filthy’ didn’t begin to describe the state of the stairwell, and Dean switched to breathing through his mouth as he made sure not to touch anything, keeping his hands firmly tucked away in his coat pockets.

“So how did this guy kick the bucket,” he asked, trying to distract himself from the way his feet stuck to the floor with every step.

Sam didn’t seem bothered by the smell or stickiness, although he did take the steps three at a time. “He jumped off a bridge.”

Dean’s breathing got heavier as he tried to keep up with his gargantuan brother. “Classy.”

“According to the coroner’s report, his blood alcohol content was 0.30.”

A stitch pulled at the muscles in Dean’s right side, and he drew a hand from his pocket to press it against the stabbing pain. “That a lot?”

Sam glanced down at him with a quirked brow, and Dean quickly schooled his features to hide his wince. “You’re legally intoxicated at 0.08, and anything above 0.40 is potentially fatal. So, yeah, 0.30 is a lot.”

“Big drinker then.” He started rubbing the stitch again as soon as Sam turned away, cursing whatever fate or god had decided that making his little brother taller than him was at all fair. “He lived alone?”

“Yeah. No significant other, and no family in the area.” They got to the landing of the second floor and stepped into the hallway. “The place should be clear.”

The splintered wood of the door to apartment 2B made it difficult to read the number, but it was nowhere near as bad as 2A’s, which had more holes than wood as though someone had gone at it with a hammer.

Sam picked the lock in under five seconds, and he and Dean stepped into an apartment that was smaller and messier than their motel room. Dean couldn’t tell if the place had been ransacked or if James Aaron had been that much of a slob. Not an inch of the floor could be seen beneath the dirty clothes, old pizza boxes, and empty beer bottles that littered it; drawers and cupboards stood open, displaying the disorganised messes within; and an unclean odour clung to the air.

Dean didn’t want to consider the state the rest of the place might be in, so as he weighed the probabilities, he said, “Right, I’ll look around in here; you can do the bedroom and bathroom.”

“No, no, no,” said Sam, his wrinkled nose and curled lip smoothing out as he turned to face Dean. “We’ll play for it.”

He raised his left palm and laid his clenched fist atop it. Dean eyed the challenge, pressing his lips together as he tried to figure out his odds, but Sam didn’t seem to be leaving him with an option. He copied his brother’s stance and stared him down as they tapped their fists against their palms. One. Two. Three. _Fuck._

Sam smirked, looking far too proud of himself. “Scissors, Dean? Really? I thought you were getting good at this game.”

“I was trying to use reverse psychology,” Dean muttered, casting a longing glance at the pigsty around him and an apprehensive one toward the closed door on the other side of the room.

Sam kept on cackling as he started searching through the main room while Dean let out a deep sigh and marched into the bedroom.

It was worse than he’d imagined.

He spent the entire time switching between breathing through his nose—which made him gag—and breathing through his mouth—which made him _taste_ it. Five minutes in, and he felt like he’d need a Silkwood shower once he was done.

The only upside was that the place was small. Had it been clean and had James Aaron had any sense of organisation, Dean could have combed through the entire apartment on his own in under fifteen minutes. As it was, it took him and Sam half an hour between them.

“I’ve got nothing,” said Dean as he left the bedroom. He breathed the fresher air of the living room and rubbed at his crawling skin.

Sam stood over the coffee table, the top of which was buried beneath a pile of flyers and takeout menus. “I might have something,” he said, and he held up a small, pink leaflet, its pages crumpled and torn. “I found a balled-up receipt and this in the trash. It’s a shop a few towns over, but look at this.”

He pointed at a bunch of lines on the top left corner. It was the shop’s logo, which was probably supposed to look like a pattern made out of rose petals, but from where Dean stood, looked more like drops of blood. There was something about the swirls and sharp angles that he recognised.

“Where do I know that from?”

“Rowena showed it to us after that incident a while back with the two sisters who were after the Black Grimoire. It’s one of the base runes that’s required in all love spells.”

Now, that was a case Dean had been trying to forget. “Magic?”

Sam shook his head, frowning at the pink pages as though they held all the answers. “Not on its own.” He dropped his hands to his side and shook his head, frown lines burrowing deep into his brow. “Maybe it’s a coincidence. What’s going on in this town has nothing to do with a love spell or else people wouldn’t be driving like idiots and hurting themselves for the fun of it. The owner of this shop probably doesn’t even realise what this symbol can do.”

That was too much uncertainty for Dean’s taste. “We’ve got a town losing its mind and a possible witch who’s set up shop not far from here. Coincidence or not, I say we check it out.”

With a sigh and a nod, Sam pocketed the receipt and the leaflet.

The brothers threw one last glance at the dump James Aaron had called home before stepping out. The hallways and stairwell looked downright sanitary after Aaron’s apartment, and the street, no matter what state it was in, felt like a haven of cleanliness, but before Dean could enjoy it, he stopped dead in his tracks, jaw dropping and eyes widening to twice their usual size.

Sam’s hand landed on his shoulder, but Dean barely felt it. “Dean, breathe.”

A simple enough thing to do, but he couldn’t, not with the shock coursing through his veins, weighing him down like lead and pressing against his heart.

“Dean—”

The air wooshed out of Dean’s lungs, and he bent over double as he sucked in deep, shuddering breaths and shouted, “My car! Sam! My—Who did this? I’m gonna fucking kill them!”

He snapped up, gaze searching the street, but it was deserted—empty save for the Impala, which had paint splatters all over it and nonsense words and symbols drawn onto the bodywork. The windows had been smashed, and the hubcaps stolen from the wheels, leaving the car looking as broken and vandalised as its surroundings.

“Oh, Baby. What did they do to you?” Dean moaned, steps faltering as he stumbled across the sidewalk. He laid a tentative hand on the cold steel. “I’m sorry.”

Sam edged into his line of sight, and although he looked suitably saddened, there was a twitch to his lips that suggested he was holding back a laugh. “You okay?”

“I hate this town,” he growled out, taking back every good thing he’d ever said or thought about this place. With a shake of his head and one last glare up and down the street, he opened the car door, brushed the shards of glass from the seat, and slipped in. “Let’s go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for making you wait so long for this chapter. I have no excuse other than procrastination, and then a schedule that got surprisingly busy just before and during the quarantine. I wanted to make sure that I didn’t leave behind any plot holes, so I’ve finished writing the last few chapters, and all that’s left to do now is edit them. I’ll post a chapter a day (6 chapters left!), and if you spot anything that doesn’t add up, let me know.  
> I hope everyone’s staying safe, and if any of you or your loved ones have the virus, I hope you/they get better soon.


	6. Death by Sex Shop

“What the hell is a bequest?” Dean asked, staring at the storefront across from which he and Sam stood.

The shop was decked in pinks and reds. Roses and heart-shaped cutouts filled the display window sitting beneath streamers printed with words like ‘love’, ‘cherish’, and ‘forever.’ It looked like Valentine’s Day had thrown up over the place a week early. And above the door hung a great big sign that read, ‘ _Lover’s Bequest’._

“It’s something that someone leaves you in their will, like an inheritance or a legacy,” said Sam, frowning as he glanced from the sign down to the address in his hand.

Dean couldn’t blame him for the confusion. Going by the guy’s apartment, James Aaron didn’t seem like the type who’d come to a place like this.

Sam eyed the shop, shrugged, and stepped up to the front door. A bell tinkled as he pushed it open, and Dean moved to follow but found his muscles tensing as he rolled back onto the heels of his feet. His gaze darted from the Impala to the passersby, and a sick feeling churned in his stomach.

“You coming?” Sam asked from where he stood inside the shop, still holding the door open. He followed Dean’s gaze and sighed loud enough for Dean to hear over the distance. “The car will be fine, Dean. We’re miles away from crazy town, and you can keep an eye on her through the window.”

Dean nodded but eyed the quiet street once more. Everything seemed normal here—cars rolled past below the speed limit; people dressed warmly and appropriately; no graffiti marked the walls, and no broken furniture littered the sidewalk. Not a sign of vandalism in sight. With one last look at Baby, Dean followed Sam into the little shop.

Incense hung heavy in the air, and music played lowly through hidden speakers. Rows upon rows of shelves filled up the small space, creating narrow alleys that Dean wasn’t sure he’d be able to fit between without having to shimmy through sideways. The polished wood gleamed red in the soft light, every inch of it covered with vials, bottles, books, and objects that Dean couldn’t begin to imagine the purposes of, but what caught his eye was the corner at the far end of the shop where were displayed a collection of items he did know the purposes of.

He turned to Sam, a grin pulling at his features. “It’s a sex shop.”

“It’s a love shop, actually,” said a young woman as she emerged from behind a stack of shelves. She was short enough that Dean hadn’t noticed her until now, but she would have been hard to miss otherwise. Electric pink hair hung in waves down to her waist, topped with dark roots that matched her lipstick and eyeshadow. Piercings decorated her lips, nose, and ears, and tattoos wound up her arms, disappearing beneath the sleeves of her shirt. “Can I help you gentlemen with anything?”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Sam, pulling his fed badge from his pocket and flicking it open. Dean followed suit. “Do you keep records of your customers and their purchases?”

She frowned from one badge to the next, then cocked an eyebrow as she looked up at the two men. “All right, one, I’m pretty sure you guys need a warrant, and, two, how can knowing what someone bought here possibly help you with whatever you’re investigating?”

Unhelpful and distracting images of a dildo being used to commit an FBI-worthy crime crowded Dean’s brain, but Sam stayed on track. He didn’t let the mention of a warrant throw him, just gave the shopkeeper an apologetic smile and said, “I’m afraid that’s confidential.”

“So are my files,” she said, tone firm and eyes unblinking. “I’m sorry, but this is people’s most private and intimate lives you intend to intrude on, gentlemen.”

Dean shook off the death-by-dildo film that was looping through his mind and took a small step forward. He hunched down slightly and slipped on an understanding yet conspiratorial smile. “We get that—”

“Do you?” she asked, not swayed in the least by step one of his charm offensive. “Tell me, Agent, what’s the last thing you bought from a place like this?”

Steps two and three flew from Dean’s brain as his mind stuttered. He found himself choking on air for a brief second, warmth creeping up the back of his neck.

The shopkeeper watched him without batting an eye. “Not so easy when it’s your personal life on display, is it?”

“I’m not—I’ve never—” Dean tried and failed to form a coherent sentence, glancing at Sam for backup, but his brother only offered a smirk and raised brows.

The woman shook her head and shrugged an apology. “If you can convince a judge to sign off on a warrant, I’ll cooperate. Until then, though, I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do.”

She gave them each a nod and turned on her heel, but Sam interrupted her before she could make it more than a few steps. “Does the name Rowena MacLeod mean anything to you?”

She froze. Tension crept into her shoulders, and when she turned back to face them, she did so very slowly. “Who are you?”

“My name’s Sam. This is my brother, Dean. We’re hunters.”

“The Winchesters?” She folded her arms over her chest, which made her look smaller than she already was, but she also lifted her chin and kept her gaze steady. “I’m honoured. Not sure why you’re here, though.”

The confirmation that she was a witch was all Dean’s brain needed to get back on the job. “Take a wild guess.”

“I haven’t done anything wrong.”

“Really?” he asked. “Mind explaining why every Tom, Dick, and Harry a few towns over has suddenly decided to go on a week-long bender?”

She glanced from Dean to Sam then back. “How should I know?”

Sam stepped in. “We found this—” he pulled the receipt and leaflet from his pocket “—in the first victim’s apartment. We know he came here, and we know you’re a witch.”

She scoffed, and just like that any trace of fear melted away from her. Her shoulders relaxed, and her arms fell to her sides. “And you immediately jumped to the wrong conclusion? I’d heard that you two were better at your job than that.”

“Look—”

“Don’t bother threatening me,” she cut in. “I value my life enough not to argue with you, so I’ll help in any way I can. But if you shoot me in the back, I’ll be royally ticked off.”

She strode to the back of the shop, stomping hard enough that she could have been mistaken for a person twice her size. Sam and Dean followed more delicately, squeezing between the shelving and holding their breath so that they didn’t get stuck.

“I’m Sophie, by the way. Sophie Greenaway,” she muttered from behind the shop counter. A laptop sat open next to an old cash register, and her fingers flew over the keyboard faster than Dean could keep track. “What was the victim’s name?”

“James Aaron,” said Sam, and he held up the receipt. “According to this, he paid with a credit card, but it doesn’t say what he bought beyond the serial code.”

“It’s a privacy measure,” said Sophie, gaze fixed on the screen, but she took a second to glance pointedly at the paper in Sam’s hand, “in case someone goes riffling through my clients’ stuff.” Her eyes flicked back down to the computer. “James Aaron came by last Friday. First-time customer. Bought one item: the Love Me, Love Me Not Formula.”

Dean’s gaze kept sliding to the sex toys in the corner, but he forced it back to Sophie. “What’s that?”

“It’s a potion designed to lower inhibitions and make you brave enough to act on your desires.”

Dean frowned, repeating the sale’s pitch over in his head while losing the promotional crap and coming to one conclusion: “So it’s a supernatural roofie?”

“It’s a social lubricant,” she said, enunciating the words sharply as she glared at him. “It doesn’t create any urges that aren’t already there, and it doesn’t force people to act on them; it just gives them a little push if they’re so inclined.”

“A little push?” said Dean, lips twisting in a sneer. “We’ve got people cheating on spouses, driving like they’re on Formula One, getting into fistfights in hospitals… What about that says ‘little push’ to you?”

She cocked her hip and balled her fists on the countertop. “I sold a single vial to Mr Aaron. That was enough to give him the bravery he needed to ask out the girl of his dreams and make her act on her feelings for him if she had any. Nothing more.”

“What if the dosage wasn’t respected?” asked Sam.

She looked over at him and shook her head. “Not possible. I measure everything out myself. Mr Aaron requested a higher dose, but I didn’t give it to him. I’m not an idiot.”

Sam’s gaze rose to the beaded door curtain behind Sophie. “Is any of your stock missing?”

Her eyes narrowed, but she shrugged and answered, “I don’t know. I only do inventory at the end of the month.”

Dean thought back to James Aaron’s mile-long rap sheet with all those counts of B&E and theft, and the pieces started falling into place. “Check.”

Sophie scowled at him but did as she was told, the brightly-coloured beads tinkling as she pushed through them. She was gone for less than five minutes, every second of which Dean spent trying not to let Sam catch him staring at the X-rated goods in the corner. The tinkling announced Sophie’s return, and the look on her face—eyes downcast and lips pressed in a firm line—told the boys everything they needed to know.

The bell over the door jingled, and a woman stepped into the shop.

“Sorry, ma’am,” said Dean as he pulled out his FBI badge again, “shop’s closed.”

The woman nodded with wide eyes and scampered out. Dean pocketed his badge and turned back to the counter to see Sophie staring at him with her mouth hanging open.

“What?”

Her mouth snapped shut with a loud click as she said through her teeth, “You realise that I’m trying to run a business here, right?”

Dean smiled in a way that didn’t reach his eyes and forced out a chuckle. “No. Right now, you’re cleaning up a mess you had a hand in causing.”

Her glare filled with venom, and Dean thought that she might hex him or throw something at him, but then she huffed a sigh and slipped around the counter, walking over to the front door to switch the open/closed sign over.

While her back was turned, Dean let his eyes roll and caught sight of Sam giving him a disapproving frown. “What?” he mouthed, but Sam shook his head and threw Sophie a small smile as she returned.

“My apartment’s upstairs,” she said as she walked past them to the other side of the counter, where she held open the bead curtain.

Dean had a moment to worry about the car, left alone and unsupervised on the street, before Sam herded him through the door.

The back of the shop was even more cramped than the front, with one wide workbench taking up most of the space and a big cabinet filling the rest of it. The cabinet partially blocked a door to the outside that sported five different locks, all of which looked old and flimsy—the kind that could be picked easily and quickly by anyone not intimidated by the number of them. Next to where Dean stood, a short, dark corridor led to a narrow staircase.

Sophie headed in that direction.

Dean’s shoulders brushed against the walls as they climbed up a floor, and claustrophobia began to set in while they waited for Sophie to pull out her keys at the top of the stairs.

Thoughts of the Ma’lak Box crept into his mind, of all those nightmares that had plagued what little sleep he’d got ever since Billie had told him how to build the damn thing. Trapped in the dark with no room to move. The weight of the ocean crushing down on top of him. Screaming himself hoarse. Pounding against the coffin walls. Buried alive for eternity.

By the time Sophie got everything unlocked, Dean would have welcomed even James Aaron’s apartment, but hers was much nicer. Small? Yes, but also clean and packed with enough plants that she could convert the place into a flower shop without much effort.

“Tea?” she asked as she tossed her keys into a bowl on the table by the door. Without waiting for an answer, she walked over to the small kitchen area, filled up the kettle, and grabbed some teabags from a tin conveniently labelled ‘tea’.

Everything seemed to be labelled. Once you got over the ‘Amazon rainforest’ look of the place, it was easy to spot the meticulous organisation—the alphabetised bookshelves, the colour-coded folders on the desk, the plastic containers in the cupboards, the wall-mounted and colour-coordinated spice rack, all combining to make Dean feel self-conscious about the ketchup stain on his shirt. He pulled his overcoat tighter around himself as he and Sam moved to sit at the spindly kitchen table.

“Tell us everything James Aaron did and said when you saw him,” said Sam.

“He came in on Friday, just before closing, and skulked around for fifteen minutes until he worked up the nerve to come up to the counter,” said Sophie, standing next to the kettle as it boiled. “It was obviously his first time in this kind of shop. He was a nervous wreck—sweating, tripping over his words, glancing at the door every two seconds like he was afraid his grandmother was about to step in and catch him in the act. He asked for one of my specialities, something that would help him get with the woman he liked. I recommended the Love Me, Love Me Not Formula and told him what it did and how to use it. He asked for a higher dose. I said ‘no’. He paid, and he left. That’s it.”

“Until he came back after you closed up shop to take what you wouldn’t give him,” Dean finished. “You need better security on this place.”

She pursed her lips and said tightly, “Yes, thank you. I know that now.”

The kettle clicked off, and she added hot water and a couple of teabags to a bright orange teapot. She brought it to the table along with three equally brightly-coloured teacups, each a different colour.

“What can the potion do in the quantities that were stolen?” asked Sam.

Sophie went to the fridge and filled a small pitcher with milk. Dean half-expected her to bring out egg salad sandwiches and a Victoria sponge cake—and was a little disappointed when she didn’t. “With a dosage that high it wouldn’t just lower inhibitions, it would stifle them completely. Not to mention extend the effects.”

“Extend?” Sam repeated as she sat down. “So it’s not permanent?”

Sophie shook her head. Pink strands of hair fell into her face, and she impatiently pushed them aside. “Of course not. It’s only supposed to last a few hours, but with the amount that Mr Aaron took, it could last weeks.”

“If it wears off how come it’s been getting worse?” asked Dean. “Shouldn’t the amount of crazy let up? Or at least stay the same?”

“There’s a crescendo.” Dean frowned, and Sophie rolled her eyes. “A climax. It builds and builds, reaches a high, then fades. The duration and intensity depend on the dosage and the person.”

Dean’s frown didn’t lessen, and she began pouring the tea. “The person?”

She lifted the milk and sugar and looked at the two men, but they both shook their heads. With a shrug, she added some of both to her cup. “The effects can vary based on how prone the drinker is to suggestion.”

“So the more gullible you are, the more affected you’ll be?” said Dean.

“I wouldn’t say ‘gullible’ is the right word for it. There are a lot of factors that can affect how willing a person is to give in to the potion.”

Dean was about to ask what those factors might be when his nose started to tickle, and a sneeze cut him off. Another followed directly after just as a little black cat trotted into the room. It stared from Sam to Dean with big yellow eyes before heading toward the latter and rubbing against Dean’s shin. Dean tensed and tried to nudge it away, but it wouldn’t take the hint.

“You can tell a lot about a guy based on how he treats cats,” said Sophie, her brows set in a firm and accusatory line.

Any retort Dean could come up with was lost in another bout of sneezing.

Sophie made a clicking sound with her tongue, and the cat meowed and jumped onto her lap. It kept staring at Dean, eyes wide and unblinking, as Sophie stroked down its back. A deep purr vibrated through its thin body. Dean edged away from it as far as his chair would allow, which wasn’t a lot, but it at least kept most of the sneezing at bay.

As Dean focused on taking shallow breaths through his mouth, Sophie asked, “So am I allowed to ask questions or is this more of an interrogation rather than a conversation?”

Sam waved a hand. “Go for it.”

She leaned back in her chair, teacup in one hand as the other kept stroking the cat. “How many people are affected?”

“We don’t know for sure,” said Sam. “According to a local doctor: about ninety per cent of the town.”

Her eyes widened, and her hand paused mid-ear-scratch. “That’s…a lot.” The cat yowled, and she resumed scratching. “How was it administered?”

“No idea. We know it started happening at a football game on Sunday, and the effects got steadily worse from there.”

Again her hand stilled, and this time the cat flicked its tail and jumped down from her lap. “So you don’t know if people are still taking it?”

Sam and Dean shared a look, and Sam asked, “What would happen if they were?”

“I’ve never tested it,” she said. She wrapped a strand of pink hair around her finger and started tugging on it. “But with most potions, long enough exposure can cause lasting damage. In this case, think: permanent psychosis.”

“So we can’t wait it out,” said Dean. He bowed his head and rubbed the bridge of his nose, all the while keeping a wary eye on that cat. “Is there a cure?”

Sophie frowned. “It’s not technically a cure because that would suggest a disease or curse, which this is not, but yes, there is a way to reverse the effects. A spell.”

Dean looked up at the ceiling and rolled his eyes at the distinction. “Do you know how to cast it?”

“Of course,” she said, eyebrows drawing together as she folded her arms over her chest. “I’m not an amateur. I know better than to brew a potion without knowing the antidote first.”

Dean smirked. “I thought it wasn’t an antidote.”

She narrowed her eyes on him, but Sam stepped in, interrupting their squabble. “Can you do it now? Do you have everything you need?”

“No,” she said, tearing her eyes away from Dean with one final glare. “I’ve never needed a reversal before.”

That sounded like a fairly amateurish move to Dean, but he let it slide. “What do you need?”

“Things that aren’t easy to come by, and my supplier has a waitlist.”

Sam grabbed a pen and notepad from his coat pocket and handed them over to her. “Ours doesn’t. Make a list. We’ll get you what you need.”

Sophie scribbled down her list like a doctor writing out a prescription—with the handwriting to match. Dean tried to decipher it but couldn’t get past the first word. Sam didn’t seem to have any trouble with it, though, as he glanced over the page and nodded. 

“Give us a minute,” he said, and he pushed his chair back, tea untouched, and nodded for Dean to follow him out into the stairwell. 

The door swung shut behind them, and the dull light and bland walls seemed all the duller and blander after Sophie’s apartment.

“Do we trust her?” Dean asked. A hint of claustrophobia edged back into his mind, but he ignored it, overlapping the small space with mental images of beaches and the open road.

Sam shrugged and squinted down at the list of ingredients scrawled into his notepad. “I don’t think she’s lying. She doesn’t seem like the type who’d mess with people for fun.”

“And she probably wouldn’t have invited us up for tea if she wanted to kill us.” Dean nodded down at the list. “Do we have all that at the bunker?”

“I think so. I’ll text Cas and ask him to round everything up.” He grabbed his phone from his pocket but didn’t turn it on. “This case is still bugging me.”

Dean agreed with him there. “Right, because if James Aaron bought a potion to get laid, why is the rest of the town all out of whack?”

Sam ran a hand through his hair, eyes distant with thought and fixed on the wall behind Dean’s head. “How do you get nearly everyone in a town to drink a potion? If it was in the water supply, everyone would be affected—no exceptions. But this…”

“Maybe we should ask the woman Aaron had his eye on.” Dean sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “All right. You stick with the witch in case she tries to make a run for it, and I’ll go look for our mystery woman.”

He started down the steps, but Sam interrupted his descent. “Hey, Dean? Be careful.”

Dean waved off the concern and threw a winning smile over his shoulder. “Always am.”

“No, really,” said Sam. He didn’t return the smile or lose the serious set of his eyebrows. “We don’t know how this potion was spread or if it’s still being handed out, and the last thing we want is either one of us getting affected.”

Dean gave it a moment of thought, brain rolling through worst-case scenarios, then he shrugged it off. “Won’t be a problem.”

“Dean—”

“What?” He turned to face his brother. “This thing targets your hang-ups, right? But we work through our worst impulses every day. We kill, lie, cheat. I mean, obviously, I get more tail than you do…”

Sam didn’t bite. “It isn’t just about sex and violence. You can’t tell me there isn’t something you want more than…this.”

The look on Sam’s face was one Dean recognised—one that never failed to tear at his insides worse than any hellhound ever could. It was the downcast eyes and drooping shoulders of a man who would rather be anywhere but here, doing anything but this. It was the harsh twist of the lips and the scornful set of the brows of someone who hated that this was his lot in life. It was the look of a guy who was about to walk out a door and not look back.

Dean took the steps that separated him from his brother slowly, ducking his head to try and catch Sam’s eye. “Like what?”

But Sam shook his head and shifted to the side, already reaching for the door handle. “Never mind.”

“Hold up.” Dean grabbed Sam’s shoulder and turned him back around. “What did you mean by that?”

“I mean that ever since we hit that town, I’ve been wanting to—” He cut himself off and looked at the door behind him, then over Dean’s shoulder, letting his eyes slide everywhere but onto Dean. Finally, he settled for dropping his gaze to his feet. “To run away, I guess.”

Dean released his grip on Sam’s shoulder, his arm falling heavy at his side. “You think you’re infected?”

“No,” Sam said quietly, still refusing to look up. “The feeling’s no worse than it was yesterday morning. What I’m saying is that if either of us does get infected, there won’t be any coming back from that.”

Dean sucked in a breath and let it out on a shaky exhale while rubbing his hands over his face. “Fine. I won’t leave my drink unattended. You gonna be okay on your own?”

“Yeah.” A smile touched his lips. “Just a guy in a suit loitering outside a sex shop—that won’t look weird at all.”

That wasn’t what Dean had meant, and Sam knew it, but no amount of talking was going to fix this, so Dean let the matter drop. “You always look weird.”

Sam snorted and shook his head. “I’ll catch up with you later.”

He pushed open the door to let Sophie know that her list was being taken care of. Dean saw Sophie at the sink, washing teacups, while her cat sat on the chair he had recently vacated, staring at him.

With a shake of his head and one last look at Sam, Dean turned and started down the stairs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I have a question: what chapter length do you guys prefer? Because I can’t decide. This story was originally meant to be only five chapters long, but then I kept adding bits and cutting chapters in half when I thought they were getting too long. So do you have a favoured word count, or does it depend?


	7. Defender of Libraries

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m adding a warning to this chapter because it gets dark for Dean with a short trip down memory lane. There’s nothing explicit or graphic, but the implication is more than evident, and although it was consensual (but not really because if he didn’t do it, then he and Sam would have gone hungry) Dean experiences it as he would if it were rape. The dark thoughts start up when someone walks up to him on the street, right after his conversation with Rowena, so feel free to skip that part and go straight to the next chapter.

Joyce Delaney—the local umbrella-wielding defender of libraries—lived on the outskirts of Eufaula in a one-story bungalow that could rival Sophie’s apartment in terms of size and organisation. There was barely any room to move, but it was so impeccably clean that Dean didn’t feel comfortable touching anything. Beyond that, the two women weren’t comparable in the least unless you wanted to describe polar opposites.

“I don’t understand why the FBI would be interested in James’s death,” Joyce said, a polite smile gracing her lips even as a slight frown creased her forehead.

Dean shifted in his seat and set his glass of homemade lemonade down on the coffee table on top of a coaster.

Joyce’s living room looked like it came right out of a 1920’s edition of _Better Homes and Gardens_ , complete with a crochet set, a rocking chair, and an old gramophone that crooned softly in the background. Between that and the cardigan and tweed pants she wore, Dean wouldn’t have pegged her as James Aaron’s type. Yet according to photographs tucked away in Aaron’s nightstand, Joyce was the only person he cared about.

Going back to Aaron’s apartment hadn’t been on Dean’s bucket list, but he’d soldiered through it. He’d parked the Impala a block away and, once in the building, had held his breath for as long as he could manage. Neither were full-proof solutions, but at least he hadn’t come out empty-handed.

Now, though, the smell seemed to cling to him like a putrid second skin. Joyce didn’t mention it, but Dean was giving more and more thought to bathing in Purell the moment he got home.

“You might have noticed,” said Dean, “that things have been a little odd around here over the past few days. It’s possible that Mr Aaron had something to do with it.”

Joyce’s smile faltered, no longer reaching her eyes as her gaze flicked to the window. “It’s hard to miss. I’ve had to close down the library and barricade it to stop vandals from breaking in.” She glanced back at Dean. “But I don’t see how James could have been involved.”

“It could be nothing, but I want to investigate every lead.” Dean pulled open a folder that he’d fashioned together in the car. It only contained James Aaron’s rap sheet and death certificate, as well as some photos of him and Joyce, but it at least looked the part. “You and Mr Aaron worked together at a soup kitchen?”

She nodded. “We volunteered on weekends.”

State-imposed volunteer work in Aaron’s case, closely monitored by his parole officer. “And you were the last person to see him alive?”

“I think so. We went out after the kitchen closed on Sunday. It was my birthday, and he wanted to buy me a drink, so we went to the bar next to the library. Not my usual scene, but he was so excited that I couldn’t say no. We had a drink, talked for a bit, and that was it.”

Dean watched as Joyce’s gaze darted away from him at that last sentence, and he leaned forward. “Really? That’s all that happened?”

Joyce ran her hands over her thighs, smoothing out invisible creases in her trousers. “I cut the evening short.”

“Why?”

“He asked me a question, and I couldn’t give him the answer he wanted to hear.” She clasped her hands together, and a watery sheen fell over her eyes as a slight tremble overcame her bottom lip. “And now he’s—”

Her voice broke off in a hiccoughing sob. Dean reached for the box of tissues sitting in the middle of the coffee table and handed it to her. She took it with a smile—she was still smiling—and dabbed at her wet cheeks and runny nose.

So James Aaron had taken Joyce to a bar, bought her a drink, dosed it with Sophie’s potion, and popped the question. But dosed up or not, it seemed that Aaron sat firmly in Joyce’s friend zone with no chance of escape, and, unfortunately for him, having taken the potion as well, the rejection drove him off the deep end.

Except none of that explained why the rest of the town was acting like college students on spring break.

Joyce sniffled one last time before straightening out her posture. She ignored the tears still welling in her eyes, her lips pressed tight in a strained smile.

Now that she’d calmed down enough to hear him, Dean caught her eye and said, “Listen to me. What happened to James Aaron wasn’t your fault. He wasn’t your responsibility, and you didn’t owe him a lie. We clear?”

Tears spilt out as she nodded, the motion shaky and uncertain, but the tightness fell from her lips, her smile turning more genuine. “I know. I just never imagined that he would…” Her hands dropped back to her lap, clutching the tissue between them. “And I’d been having such an amazing night. I can’t remember the last time I’d felt so carefree, like I could do anything at all, whatever I wanted.”

Good to know that Sophie’s background-meddling had at least been good for something.

Dean rose to his feet and grabbed his coat from the back of the couch, slipping it on as he said, “Thank you for your time, Miss Delaney. If you think of anything else that could help with this case, please call.”

He handed her a card with his number, and she clutched it tightly between both hands. Nodding and smiling as she led him through the house, showing him out onto the front porch where rows of flower pots eagerly waited for spring. She wrapped her cardigan tightly around herself as the cold wind blew past, and her gaze darted down the street to where a group of men and women were messing around on a bench—jumping on it and over it while shouting and laughing.

“You will fix this, won’t you, Agent?” she asked, her smile trembling, her eyes filled with both fear and hope.

Dean nodded and fixed on a self-assured grin, ducking his head and dropping his shoulders so that he didn’t tower over her so much. “That’s my job. Everything’ll be back to normal before you know it.”

Her smile reached her eyes, crinkling them at the sides and lighting them up, but it only lasted a moment before a loud whoop rang out from the crowd by the bench, drawing her attention to them, and forcing the tension to return.

“Is there somewhere you can go?” Dean asked, eyeing the group as their jostling got rougher, playful nudges turning into harder shoves. “Only for a few days while I sort this out. D’you have a friend or family who lives out of town maybe?”

Joyce nodded, hugging herself tightly. “My parents live over by the state park. I can stay with them.”

“Good.” The bench-dwellers’ shoves turned into a wrestling match. One pair teetered on the edge of the sidewalk, one wrong move away from rolling onto the road. “D’you want me to stay while you pack a bag?”

“I’ll be fine,” she said with a small shake of her head. “Good luck with your case.”

Joyce shot Dean one last smile before hurrying back inside and double-locking the door behind her.

Dean eyed the group by the bench, happy that he’d had the foresight to park the Impala at the motel and leave her there. The rest of the street was deserted, with only a few curtains rustling in the nearby houses as people peered through their windows.

Walking down the porch steps and over the small front yard, Dean grabbed his cell from his pocket and took a right toward the town centre, dialling as he went. It took a few rings, but the line eventually connected, and a loud sigh echoed through his phone.

“I’m in the middle of an excellent Shiatsu, Dean,” said Rowena, her accent coming out all the stronger over the phone. “This had better be important.”

Dean turned a corner and found himself on a street entirely devoid of life. “I’ll make it quick,” he said, even as the hairs on the back of his neck tingled.

This was what made ghost towns such a popular tourist attraction—the unnaturalness of seeing a place designed to accommodate people looking so empty. It felt wrong. Its familiarity made it more disturbing and frightening than any graveyard or haunted asylum could ever hope to be because it made the unease personal, digging in close to home, a place that was meant to be safe yet somehow no longer was.

“Do you know a witch named Sophie Greenaway?” Dean asked, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck. “She looks like she’s in her early to mid-twenties, lives in Oklahoma, and runs a sex shop?”

Rowena made a sound like the purring of a cat. “She sounds interesting. I can’t say I’ve ever heard of her before now, but I would certainly like to meet her. I long for the company of my own kind, but Coven witches can be such traditionalists; they get oh so tedious after a while.”

Thoughts of what might happen if Rowena got it in her head to start a Coven of her own again passed through Dean’s mind, but they didn’t cause so much as a flicker of concern. “Good thing the Coven blacklisted you centuries ago then, isn’t it?”

“I wouldn’t call it ‘blacklisted’,” she said with a tut. “I was merely invited to leave.” 

Dean scoffed. If the Coven’s way of inviting one of their own to leave the club was to strip them of half their powers and exile them, he didn’t want to think what they’d do to a witch they kicked out.

Rowena ignored his scoff and carried on. “What has this Miss Greenaway done to provoke the patented Winchester ire?” She paused for a second then came back on, her tone a little chillier and more disapproving. “This had better not be another case of you boys blaming a witch simply because she practices magic. I do hope you’ve gotten past that prejudice.”

Dean’s eyes rolled at Rowena’s social justice rhetoric, and he said, “She sold some guy a potion that lowers inhibitions, but he used his five-finger discount to take a little extra from her stocks. Now there’s an entire town suffering from low impulse control.”

“I see”—the line crackled as Rowena shifted—“and is Miss Greenaway working on a reversal?”

“Yeah, Cas is driving down with the ingredients.” Dean turned onto the main street where the sidewalk widened and trees lined the road. Barbershops, florists, and restaurants all sat empty and forlorn as silence sat heavily on the abandoned street. “We still don’t know how the effects spread to so many people, though. Don’t suppose you have any ideas?”

“Oh, pet, if this were a spell, widening the range wouldn’t be a problem, but a potion is more delicate. It will only infect those who ingest it.”

“Super. So James Aaron is roofying an entire town from beyond the grave.” He pinched the bridge of his nose as a pounding started up behind his eyeballs. “All right. Thanks, Rowena.”

A car sped past, swerving from one lane to the other, and Dean kept a wary eye on it until it disappeared down a side road.

He sighed and turned his focus back to Rowena, asking hesitantly, “By the way, how’re you doing?”

The line went quiet and stayed that way long enough that Dean turned his head to glance at the screen of his phone and make sure the call hadn’t gone dead. It took a moment, but, eventually, Rowena answered, her voice quieter and softer than usual, “I’ll be fine. We all must keep ticking on, mustn’t we?”

Dean nodded and kicked through a pile of broken glass scattered beneath a streetlamp. “Seems like it.”

“If you boys need help, let me know. But do try to get by without me, won’t you? I can’t always be around to hold your and your brother’s hands.”

“You got it. Call if you need anything.”

He hung up and checked his cell for texts from Sam or Cas, glancing up only briefly when a guy crossed onto the same sidewalk as him. The man was about Dean’s age and well built, with gelled up dark hair and an expensive watch.

As far as threat assessment went, he didn’t even ping Dean’s radar. Gym junkie or not, everything about the guy screamed ‘sheltered upbringing’. So when his and Dean’s paths crossed, Dean didn’t pay him any mind, not until the guy grabbed hold of Dean’s coat and slammed him against a tree.

Shock had Dean’s mind stuttering long enough to delay his instincts, giving his assailant enough time to pin him hard to the tree. It only took a second before Dean’s senses started coming back to him, but then lips met his.

Everything stopped. Mind and heart screeching to a halt as every inch of Dean tensed, his muscles winding so tight that it hurt.

He couldn’t move.

_Stop this._

Memories rushed back of rough hands leaving behind bruises, taking their due and throwing money at him afterwards.

_Fight back._

He couldn’t. Dad wasn’t back yet. They needed the money. Sam was hungry.

_Dad’s dead. Fight._

Dean’s eyes snapped open, and the memories cleared. He shifted, ready to send the guy flying, but before he could, the weight pushing against him eased. The man backed away, and Dean could breathe again. He gasped for air, inhaling fast and shallow as his heart tried to beat its way out of his chest.

Oxygen rushed to his brain, and his body finally made sense of the signals firing through his synapses. He threw a punch, slower than usual and way off the mark, giving the guy plenty of time to jump out of the way.

“Whoa, there,” said the man, throwing his hands up and flashing a smile. “I take it that means you don’t want to go out some time.”

The smile set Dean off. Fire surged, and his vision clouded. He grabbed the stranger by the lapels of his coat and flipped their positions, slamming the guy against the tree.

“What the hell?” the man shouted.

Dean pushed him harder against the trunk and snarled, “Why did you do that?”

“Because you’re hot.” He didn’t lower his hands, keeping them up like he was trying to stop a crazy person from going over the rails. “Would you relax?”

Dean’s heart beat fast enough to hurt, and his throat burned as he struggled to force oxygen through his airways. But the worst part was the prickling of his eyes.

He pushed away, and the guy winced as it forced him harder against the tree. Dean stepped back, looking away and blinking hard as he snapped, “Get out of here.”

The guy didn’t need telling twice. He edged away, keeping Dean in his sight until he was a few feet away, at which point he turned and sped off but not before muttering, “Freak.”

Dean squeezed his eyes shut, and a long breath shuddered out of him, shaking through him all the way to the tips of his fingers. He ran a hand down his face as the other clenched into a fist, blunt nails digging into skin.

The memories were gone, forced back to the darkest corner of his mind, yet the taste of them lingered at the surface. They were unclean—filthy and reeking and clinging to him in a way he knew would never wash off. Men, faceless and nameless, coming and going as Dean lay there like a cut of meat on the counter, waiting for the next butcher to take a stab at him. He couldn’t fight; he’d invited them to do this to him, sometimes begged—God, the sick pleasure they’d gotten out of that, feeding off his desperation as they’d used him in any way they saw fit, knowing he wouldn’t put up a fight.

The stinging in his eyes turned to burning tears, slipping out and running down his cheeks for anyone to see. No matter how hard he tried to force them back, no matter how hard he tried to forget, the tears fell, and it tore away at his insides.

He wanted to feel the warm, familiar embrace of anger, needed the comforting burn of wrath—anything to fill the pathetic well of murky, tainted waters that had been carved into him all those years ago. But the anger refused to rain down. It trickled in, but wouldn’t wash away the feeling that made him want to claw at his own skin.

With a shaky exhale that was close to turning into a scream, Dean swung around hard and fast, slamming his fist into the tree. Pain throbbed up his arm, ringing through his bones all the way up to his shoulder. His knuckles cracked, and a couple of his fingers moved in ways they shouldn’t, dislocating at the joints, but he didn’t care.

His focus slipped to the physical discomfort and away from everything else.

It worked in a way—pushing the despair to the edges of his thoughts—but he could still feel it there, lurking, waiting for his head to clear enough for it to return and take root.

He needed a better solution, and he knew exactly where to find one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't take as much time to edit this chapter as I would have liked, so I hope it isn't too bad. If you spot any mistakes or feel like I cheated Joyce out of more screentime, let me know and I'll fix it/see what I can do!


	8. Time for a Bar Fight

Music thrummed as Dean slugged another shot. The whiskey burned its way down his throat, searing even through the numbness, but he barely registered it. His thoughts were little more than hazy blurs, each unconnected, none important enough for him to bother focusing on.

The bartender walked past and poured Dean another glass, not pausing long enough for the barest of acknowledgements, too busy for civilities.

Fewer patrons crowded the bar tonight, which wasn’t to say that business wasn’t booming. Plenty of people still mulled about downtown, but not as many as last night. At least a third had gone and found greener pastures, but Dean didn’t want to consider what or where those pastures were. That concern was a problem for another day in his book.

He downed the next shot and was slamming his cup onto the water-stained counter when a voice behind him said, “Hello, Dean.”

He didn’t need to turn around to know who stood there. No one else had a voice that low-pitched and gravelly, a touch too deep and rough to be human. Cas slipped onto the barstool next to Dean’s but didn’t relax into it. His posture remained straight and stiff like a cat flicking its tail—he was pissed about something.

“I tried to call,” Cas said after the bartender did another drive-by and filled Dean’s shot glass to the brim.

“My phone died.” The words came out clipped, not quite a snap but close enough that Cas turned his head to stare at Dean, who kept his gaze stubbornly glued to the amber liquid in front of him. Cas kept on staring, and even though Dean couldn’t see them, he could feel those blue eyes burrowing into his soul. He shot back the whiskey and asked, “How d’you know where to find me? By picking up on my longing?”

He flinched at the words, cursing the alcohol for making him say them aloud.

Longing came in a bunch of shapes and sizes; it wasn’t just the romantic cliché that chick-flicks made it out to be. It could be anything from wanting to reveal a secret to just having a sit down with someone. Cas got a vague sense of people’s deepest desires, but he wasn’t privy to the specifics. Forgetting all of that, though, mentioning ‘longing’ still sounded touchy-feely, like a confession that had slipped out before he could figure out what to make of it.

Cas mustn’t have seen a problem with it. “No,” he said. “I went to your motel first, but you weren’t there. Then I drove around town. This bar is the only one left open.”

The whiskey sloshed and squirmed in Dean’s stomach. Cas had found him because the angel knew him that well, which somehow felt worse than thinking of Cas as a longing-fixated-Bloodhound.

“I dropped the ingredients off with Sam,” said Cas. “Sophie says that the spell will be ready by morning.”

“Super,” Dean muttered.

He gestured for the bartender, but as the guy walked over, Cas slipped his hand over Dean’s glass and gave the bartender a look that sent him scurrying away. Dean watched as the whiskey bottle got farther and farther out of reach and turned to Cas with a complaint on his lips, but Cas was already glaring at him, and Dean got caught in the web of those eyes, unable to move, unable to look away. Trapped.

“The spell won’t be of any use unless we find the source of the potion and make sure it’s no longer being administered,” Cas said. “Sam told me that you were taking care of it.”

Dean’s jumble of alcohol-soaked thoughts cleared just enough for him to remember that he was on a job and that there wasn’t any room on the agenda for self-pity. Guilt seeped in, leaving a bitter aftertaste crawling down his throat, and he grumbled, “I  _ am _ taking care of it.”

“Really?” Cas didn’t glance down at the empty shot glass, but the domineering arch of his brows made his point perfectly clear. Dean didn’t appreciate the way it made the guilt tighten in his stomach.

He spotted the waitress from last night passing by and sent her a wave, calling her other. She smiled and veered his way as he leaned into Cas and whispered, “I am working.”

“Hello again,” said the waitress. She eyed Cas then glanced back at Dean. “Where’s your other friend?”

Dean swivelled on his stool to face her and swayed a little too close to the edge. Cas was quick to steady him, strong fingers wrapping around Dean’s elbow and keeping him still. The guilt from earlier made Dean’s stomach flutter uncomfortably, and he moved out of Cas’s grip with a stab of annoyance as he said to the waitress, “He couldn’t make it.”

“Well, three’s a crowd, right?” She turned to Cas and held out her hand. “I’m Jessie.”

Cas extended his own hand and shook hers, participating in the action mechanically, as though he still couldn’t understand why humans considered this necessary. The annoyance lightened, and Dean started to smile.

Jessie grabbed a notepad and pen from her back pocket and looked up at the two men. “What can I get for you?”

Dean didn’t bother glancing at the menu. “A burger and beer for me, same as yesterday.”

Jessie jotted it down then turned to Cas, but he shook his head. “Nothing for me, thank you.”

“Get him a beer too,” said Dean.

“Dean—”

“You’re not making me drink alone,” Dean interrupted, adding a light thump to Cas’s arm to soften his words.

A protest hung on Cas’s lips, but it vanished with a heavy sigh, and Jessie smiled at the two of them and said, “Coming right up.”

Dean quickly brushed his fingertips against her shoulder, stopping her in her tracks. “Hold up,” he said. “Were you working on Sunday?”

She turned back to him. “Sure. We had a huge crowd in after the game.”

He pulled a picture of James Aaron and Joyce Delaney from the folder, which was still stuffed in his coat. “I don’t suppose you remember seeing these two here, do you?”

Jesse had to squint at the photo in the low light, but it only took her a moment before she nodded and said, “I remember. James was in here nearly every night before his accident, but it was a first for Miss Delaney.”

Dean slipped the photos back into his pocket. “You took their order?”

Jessie nodded and pursed her lips. “They had a few beers—way less than what James usually has, but he was always more of a vodka and lime kinda guy. They didn’t order anything else and were only here for a few hours. I went to give them refills, but Miss Delaney had already left, and James didn’t stay long after that. It was the first time I hadn’t had to mop his ass out of here at closing time.”

Dean nodded and made a mental note to add a little extra to her tip. “Thanks,” he said, and when she left with their order, he turned to Cas. “See: working.”

Cas didn’t look impressed or even mildly apologetic. “What did that line of questioning achieve?”

“I don’t know yet.” He edged out of his stool, and Cas followed suit as Dean led the way to a table in a darker, more secluded corner of the bar.

They’d barely sat down when Jessie arrived with their beers. Dean was quick to grab his, but he paused, the cold glass pressed against his lip, as Cas lifted his own pint and drank, Adam’s apple bobbing with each long gulp until the large mug was empty.

Dean’s eyebrows rose, and he stared at the frothy remains that lingered at the bottom of Cas’s glass. “Take it easy there, Barney Gumble.”

Cas took a napkin from the dispenser and wiped the foam from his upper lip. “You know that alcohol doesn’t affect me.”

Dean scoffed into his pint, “Show off.” He gulped down a far less impressive swallow than Cas’s and set the mug back down. “How’s Jack?”

Dots of beer speckled the small table, and Cas started wiping them all away, one by one, with his napkin. “He hasn’t left his room.”

Cas’s gaze stayed fixed on the table as he went about his task meticulously, with such an intense focus etched into his features that it made him look older. It wasn’t just his frown giving that impression. The past few years had worn Cas’s vessel in a way that no amount of healing powers could fix, and now this situation with Jack had him looking strained and tired.

“He defeated an archangel,” said Dean, trying not to wonder how an angel, who didn’t need sleep, could have bags hanging heavily beneath his eyes. “It’s gonna take him a while to recharge his batteries.”

Cas’s hands stilled. Dean was sure he saw them twitch, but before he could comment, Cas folded them in front of him, fingers clasped together. “And if his batteries cannot be recharged?”

That was the million-dollar question without an answer, and it made Dean shift in his seat, his gaze dropping away from Cas’s. The uncertainty wedged itself into him like a gallstone, but he pushed past it. “He can survive without a soul. Donatello does.”

“Donatello is human. Jack is a Nephilim. As human as Jack seems, he is more powerful than either of us can comprehend, and if he truly no longer has a soul…” He trailed off, and his knuckles turned white. “But, as you said yesterday: there’s nothing we can do about it, so we should stop worrying.”

“True that,” Dean said, and he raised his pint a little higher in salute before downing half of it.

Cas watched him, eyes unblinking and head tilting to the side in that unnerving way he had of studying people as though he were unravelling the very essence of their being. “Are you disappointed that there’s no monster here for you to hunt?”

Dean wiped away the beer foam with the back of his hand and shrugged. “There’s always gonna be a monster to hunt somewhere—if not here, then in some other town. Just gotta wrap things up in this one, and we can hit the road by tomorrow afternoon.”

“So you don’t plan on bothering Sophie?” Cas leaned back in his chair and untangled his fingers, laying them out flat on the table. “She seemed nice, but Sam said that you didn’t like her.”

Heaving a sigh and cursing his brother’s big mouth, Dean shook his head. “It’s not that I don’t like her. It’s just that…” But the right words wouldn’t come. He bit down on his lip, and his eyes fell to Cas’s splayed hands. “This morning, I sat down and had tea with a witch. If you’d told me a few years ago that something like that would happen, I would have laughed in your face.”

Cas nodded as though that explained everything. “You’ve grown. That isn’t a bad thing.” The way he said it—the gentleness of his voice and the softness of his words—made the tension that had been plaguing Dean for hours ease away in a wash of warmth, but the warmth was quick to vanish too when Cas added, “Is that why you’re upset?”

Dean’s gaze snapped to Cas’s, and every one of his muscles went rigid. He couldn’t hold the angel’s eyes for more than a second, and he quickly looked away, muttering through a clenched jaw, “I’m not upset.”

Cas didn’t blink or move. His gaze bore into Dean like a freight train, slamming through every wall Dean could put up.

_ He knows _ .

But that wasn’t possible because no one knew—no one had ever known—not Sam or Dad or Bobby. Dean had never told a soul, and no one had ever come close to guessing, no one had ever dared to suspect. Only those men knew, the ones who had bought Dean’s services all those years ago. Yet the venomous voice in his mind continued to whisper, ‘ _ He knows _ ’, and it filled Dean with feelings of filth and impurity.  _ Tainted _ , that was what he was. An uncomfortable heat spread through him, burning as it went, and the smoke that clung to the air stung at his eyes and caught in his throat.

He pushed up suddenly, knocking his chair backwards where it banged against the floor, and muttered, “I gotta take a leak.”

His gaze stayed on his feet as he pushed his way to the bathroom, and more than a few outraged cries and complaints rang out after him, but he barely noticed.

The restroom was no bigger than a broom closet, but Dean didn’t care. He slammed and locked the door behind him before stumbling over to the sink and all but falling against it, leaning so heavily on the cracked porcelain that he felt sure that it would rip from the wall. His gaze rose to the dirty mirror, where he saw his pale skin and bloodshot eyes. It wasn’t a surprise that Cas had known that something was wrong—a total stranger would probably have noticed the same thing, and Cas knew him much better than that.

_ You’re being an idiot _ , he told himself. Cas couldn’t possibly know, no matter how well he knew Dean. He wouldn’t understand that this wasn’t the kind of thing that men ever talked about and would have brought it up by now. Dean’s dirty secret was safe. And even if it wasn’t, so what? Cas probably wouldn’t bat an eye anyway.

Dean’s stomach twisted.

Cas wouldn’t judge him, but the sight of sympathy flooding into those down-turned eyes as pity and regret carved deep furrows into the angel’s brow would feel worse than any amount of disgust or judgement ever could.

Dean let out a shaky exhale and splashed cold water over his face. He tried to get his breathing back to normal, intent on forcing his panic into a dusty little box in the corner of his mind where it belonged.

He stayed in that tiny bathroom long enough for people to start banging on the door, the noise barely making its way to him through the haze. Only when one particularly loud knock sent the door rattling on its hinges did Dean push himself away from the sink. He barrelled through the door, ignoring the glares, and set off back to the small corner table where his burger and Cas waited for him.

Cas had picked up Dean’s fallen chair before sitting back down in his own seat, where he reclined, sipping at another pint of beer and sneaking fries from Dean’s plate.

That last part might have made Dean grumble if it were anyone else, but the oddity of seeing Cas—100% angel, everything-tastes-like-atoms Cas—eating had him slowing down. Cas only ate when something was wrong, when his grace was taken from him or when Famine was in town.

Dean inched over to the table. “You’re eating.”

“Yes,” said Cas as he stole one last fry. He grabbed another napkin from the dispenser and wiped the grease and salt from his fingers. “I miss the taste of food. I know I can no longer experience it, but I do sometimes wonder if I might be able to trick myself into remembering what things taste like as I eat them.”

Dean kept on staring and asked slowly, “So you had an urge to test that theory?”

“I—” Cas’s eyes widened. “Oh.”

Dean’s gaze swept over their small table, pausing on the half-empty pint next to Cas’s hand. “It’s in the beer.” He spun on his heels and spotted Jessie across the room. He made it to her in record time, and she gave a startled jump when he darted in front of her. “Have you had to change beer barrels since Sunday?”

“Uh, no?” she said with an uncertain smile. “The owner has a deal with the brewery a few towns over. He gets maxi-sized barrels that can last us up to a week. A new one is set up every Saturday.”

“I need you to give me that barrel.”

She frowned and shook her head. “Look, you seem nice and all, but—”

He took his badge from his pocket and flipped it open, and the words died in her throat. Her head jerked in a nod, but before Dean could feel any sort of relief, someone slammed into him, and he stumbled backwards.

“The lady’s not interested,” the guy who’d body-checked him slurred. He couldn’t stand up straight, and his eyes wouldn’t focus, but he was maybe twice as wide as Dean was, and none of it was extra body fat.

Jessie put a restraining hand on the guy’s forearm while her other hand balanced a tray of empty glasses. “It’s okay, Roger. He wasn’t bothering me.”

“No, it isn’t right,” Roger bellowed, sounding like a wounded bull right before he charged like one.

Jessie’s tray went flying, and Dean distantly heard glass shattering and shouts ringing out as he dived out of the way. Roger bowled past and ploughed into a table. The woman sitting there screamed, and a man yelled as Roger and the table crashed to the floor in a mess of splinters and limbs.

Dean rolled to his feet and spun to check on Jessie, but a fist caught him in the jaw. Pain exploded in a flash of bright light followed by star-dotted darkness. He fell onto a chair, which crumpled beneath his weight and momentum. Someone jumped on top of him, landing hard on his stomach, and the air was forced from his lungs with a searing woosh. Splintered wood dug into his back as punches and kicks rained down upon him. The shadow obscuring his sight faded away in time for him to grab at the foot that was heading for his face and twist it hard enough to send the guy tumbling. He blocked the hits to his sternum while twisting and bucking trying to throw off the man straddling his chest.

The weight pressing down on him suddenly vanished, and he gasped for air, swallowing it greedily as a hand reached down and yanked him to his feet.

“You appear to have upset the locals,” said Cas. He stood tall and firm like an anchor in a stormy sea while the bar brawl raged around him.

Dean wiped a trickle of blood from a cut on his chin, feeling the adrenaline burn through his veins, filling him with jittery energy that had him throwing a blazing grin Cas’s way. “I gotta work on my social skills.”

The corner’s of Cas’s lips tilted upward in a lopsided smile that had Dean feeling like he could take on an army. But first, they had a job to finish. He grabbed Cas’s hand so they wouldn’t lose each other in the melee and pulled him along as they ducked and wove toward the bar counter.

Fists flew, and punches beat down all around them as the bar devolved into chaos. It didn’t matter who hit who or why. No one needed a reason. The air felt electric with escaping tension, and the hairs on the back of Dean’s neck and arms stood on end. He wanted to join the fray, wanted to feel the high that came with a no-consequences, no-objective brawl. Fights that pure didn’t come around often, and the urge to take part tickled through him, begging to be itched, but the firm grip on his hand stopped him.

Cas’s breath puffed against the back of Dean’s neck, and it made Dean’s heart race all the more.

The pair swerved around a rowdy group of fighters and banged through the door next to the bar, barging into the too-bright kitchen.

A large man wearing a stained apron barrelled toward them. Dean’s fists flew up, but the cook stopped several feet away. “What the hell is going on out there?”

Dean lowered his hands, one of which still held on to Cas, and he reached into his pocket for his badge. “FBI investigation,” he said. “We’re here to confiscate every barrel of beer you’ve got in stock.”

“What the hell for?” the cook asked, his voice loud. His grease-splattered forehead furrowed so deeply that he looked like an angry bulldog.

“We believe they’ve been contaminated,” said Cas. His shoulder brushed against Dean’s, and Dean’s gaze slid over him. He had to admit that the angel passed for a better fed than he did at the moment.

Cas looked calm and collected, his eyes missing that fever-bright gleam Dean was sure was all too noticeable in his own. The hunter was running high on energy like a little kid left unattended at the dessert table, but Cas stood stoically still, dripping with control and authority. It made Dean’s stomach squirm, and he had to force his gaze away.

The cook grumbled some more, but when two other people tumbled through the steel door, hitting and kicking at each other, he went a funny puce colour and stomped over to them.

Grabbing the newcomers by the backs of their collars, he heaved them out, then turned and pointed a thick finger at Dean and Cas. “I don’t know what’s going on, but I want it to stop. Right. Ruddy. Now.”

Dean nodded with a ‘Yes, sir,’ on his lips, but before he could get it out, the cook barged out the door, hollering like a drill sergeant and shouting curses loud enough to make the walls shake.

“I wouldn’t want to be out there,” said Dean, and he puckered his lips to let out a low whistle.

Cas chuckled, squeezing Dean’s hand as he did so and drawing Dean’s attention back to him. The fluttering in Dean’s stomach returned, and his mouth went dry. He felt, inexplicably, like a twelve-year-old on his first date.

A soft smile curved Cas’s lips as he leaned in and asked, “So, beer barrels?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cas finally shows up, and all secrets are revealed! I hope everyone’s enjoying the story so far, and well done to everyone who guessed ahead of time where this case was going!!


	9. Come On, Angel

Jessie hadn’t been kidding when she’d said the barrel was ‘maxi-sized’. It was as tall as Dean was and large enough that he couldn’t wrap his arms all the way around it. If he hadn’t had backup, he would have spent a good long time scratching his head, trying to think up a way of removing the barrel; hopefully, coming up with something other than opening it up and letting its contents slop onto the floor.

Luckily for him and for whoever had to mop this place, he had the best kind of backup he could ask for.

Cas took one look at the stainless steel cylinder and rolled his eyes at this measly human contraption. With the barest push of his grace, he loosened the fastenings and let gravity drag the barrel from its place atop a thick-legged table and into his waiting arms. He lifted the barrel like it was a sack of potatoes and heaved it onto his shoulder without breaking a sweat.

All the while, Dean stood back and watched, bouncing on the balls of his feet like a boxer waiting for his turn in the ring. The adrenaline was making him heady, euphoric, downright giddy. It coursed through his veins like tiny zaps of electricity, pinging from one extremity to the next, desperate for release.

When Cas adjusted his grip, the barrel tilted, and Dean lunged forward, arms out, only for Cas to stop him with a hand laid on his shoulder.

“I’ve got this,” the angel said.

Had it been anyone else, Dean would have hovered—hell, in the state he was in, he would have ignored the reassurance completely and stepped in. But this was Cas, rebelling angel extraordinaire, with a voice that wasn’t quite human yet felt safe and kind of like _home._

A scoff spluttered past Dean’s lips at the thought.

Cas’s eyes narrowed on him, all squinty and suspicious, as he asked, “What?”

“Nothing.” The word came out too quickly and too high-pitched making Dean wince. He cleared his throat to cover up for it, but a blush burned along the back of his neck, spreading all the way to his ears.

Cas didn’t look away. His gaze lowered to Dean’s throat and rose, slowly tracking the progress of scorching skin, which accomplished nothing more than making Dean feel like he was standing in a furnace with the temperature slowly getting amped up. Bursts of energy kept on jolting away inside him, and a bead of sweat carved a cold trail down his back. He felt like an insect under a magnifying glass under the sun.

A crash rang out from the other side of the wall where the bar’s patrons were still going at it, and Cas’s gaze flicked away, breaking whatever fight of flight trance Dean had found himself in. The heat vanished, but whatever relief that should have brought barely registered. Everything inside him seemed to sag, folding in on itself like a deflating balloon now that Cas’s gaze was no longer holding him upright. His shoulders drooped, and his heartbeat stuttered even as the adrenaline kept on pumping, pounding through him almost painfully.

Action—that was what he needed.

“Let’s get out of here before someone decides that what this party needs is more hooch,” he said.

He didn’t glance at Cas as he bounded toward the back door—a great big thing of solid steel that looked like it ought to give out onto a delivery ramp and not some back alley. The red bricks around the door frame were chipped and covered in cement, as though the door was a recent addition and the owner hadn’t splurged to get it installed. It was the perfect size to get the beer barrel through, which lent itself to the ‘newly-installed’ theory.

The minute Dean stepped outside, the cold air assaulted him, biting into his burning skin so sharply that he swore up a storm. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and scrunched up his shoulders high enough that they protected his ears from the wind only to glance over at Cas who stood beside him, completely unbothered by the cold, looking up at the sky as he calmly waited out Dean’s cursing.

The soft light above the door bathed Cas in gold and, from where Dean stood, created a halo behind Cas’s head. The angel’s face looked well and truly angelic, but the beer barrel made him seem like a frat student with a problem. That contrast had laughter bubbling up from his throat, easing out in a soft chuckle only to snowball so quickly that he struggled to catch his breath. He doubled over, hands resting on his knees, laughing like he’d just heard the best joke in the world.

“It’s the effects of the potion,” said Cas, still holding that beer barrel that was bigger than he was. “You’re feeling everything a little more strongly than you usually do.”

Dean nodded, the movement jerky between his gasps for breath. When the final sob of laughter ebbed and air returned to his lungs, he managed to straighten and lean back against the alley wall, his gaze darting over to Cas.

“Yeah?” he asked, panting out that one syllable and watching the way Cas’s eyes softened, crinkling at the sides even though his lips barely moved. “How about you? What are you feeling?”

Cas watched him, that gentle look growing for a moment before it changed, morphing into something sardonic with only a wry twist of his lips. “Unchanged.”

Dean’s heart sank, his insides squirmed, and the painful fluttering returned as though butterflies were dive-bombing his stomach. “So…what?” he asked. “The only impulse you have is to steal people’s fries?”

“It would appear so.” The words came out as a whisper as Cas turned away, and Dean felt—

Stupid. He felt stupid.

With a grunt barely escaping his tightly pressed lips, he pushed himself away from the wall and started down the alley, heading away from the centre of town and expecting Cas to follow. The angel did just that, silently keeping pace as Dean kicked up every newspaper and beer bottle he came across.

Something that felt like disappointment clawed at his gut, which was dumb because he had no reason to feel disappointed. There was nothing wrong with Cas’s answer; it just wasn’t the one he’d expected. He wasn’t exactly sure what it was he’d wanted to hear, what answer Cas could have given that had Dean holding his breath even as his lungs complained, but ‘unchanged’ wasn’t it. ‘Unchanged’ was very far from _it_.

He punted a glass bottle hard enough that it hit a garbage can and shattered upon impact. Shards skidded back to him and crunched beneath his boots, creating a steady sound almost like walking over hard-packed snow. He focused on the noise—feet slapping the ground and glass cracking; rodents scurrying from one dark corner to the next; puffs of breath filling the air and blood drumming against his ears. Distantly, fires crackled and people spoke, but the words were quiet and the night subdued as though already the townsfolk were winding down from their brush with impulsivity.

“What are we going to do with this?” asked Cas as he lightly patted the barrel. The clang of echoing metal and sloshing liquid joined the quiet symphony, there and gone in less than an instant without disrupting a thing. Fleeting.

Dean shrugged, a petulant jerk of the shoulders better suited to a scorned teen; the kind of shrug he’d pulled off once in front of his dad and had his head bitten off for it. “Real men use their words, Dean,” John had barked. “If you have something to say to me, you say it.” Dean had a lot to say to his old man—he knew that now—but back then, seeing that look in his dad’s eyes, all anger and impatience and disappointment, it had made him feel sick, like he was five seconds away from either throwing up or bursting into tears. He wasn’t sure which would have been worse. Which would John Winchester have taken to least kindly?

It didn’t matter. Not anymore. Not right now. Not when it was just him and Cas, and Cas had done nothing to deserve Dean’s pissy mood.

With a quiet exhale, Dean forced the coiled muscles in his back to unwind, loosening out of his ‘shady mugger’ stance.

“We should call Sam and tell him what happened,” he said, glancing over at Cas and the barrel. He smiled—so what if it was a little strained?—and added in a tone so forced full of cheeriness that it grated his ears, “And maybe find out from Sophie how to defuse this”—he rapped his knuckles against the barrel, reaching his arm behind Cas to do so—“so that we can take it home with us.”

Cas looked over at him, face wary and wilfully blank for a moment before his features relaxed. “It won’t fit in your car.”

_Always so pragmatic._

Dean’s smile relaxed. “So we’ll bottle it first. Can’t let it go to waste.”

Cas let out an exhale that might have been a soft chuckle, and the two men and their barrel stepped out of the long alley and onto a dark and empty street. Half the streetlights were out, piles of shattered glass lying at their bases, and the ones that were on flickered and dimmed, as though the job of lighting the town was too much for them without their fallen brethren.

Light or dark, Dean didn’t care. No matter how odd a sight he and Cas made, in this town riddled with chaos, anyone who would bat an eye at them had bigger fish to fry.

“Where is your car?” asked Cas, his frown scrunching up his face and practically burying his eyes beneath his furrowed brows.

Dean wrapped his fingers around the Impala’s keys in his pocket and rubbed his thumb over the warming metal. “I left her in the woods behind the motel.”

Cas’s expression didn’t change—if anything, his brows knitted further. “Why?”

“It’s safer there than it is here,” he said, but Cas kept on staring. Dean rolled his eyes. Dealing with Cas was like talking to a little kid sometimes: you had to spell everything out for them. “Someone vandalised her.” The words came out in an undertone. He couldn’t bring himself to say them any louder than that. It was a delicate matter, not one to be shouted from the rooftops.

Cas didn’t see it that way. The deep rumble of his voice sounded like a groan of thunder over the quiet street, where even a whisper echoed like a gunshot. “You have a very unhealthy relationship with that car.”

“Shut up,” said Dean with a grunt, a huff, and a glare as he pulled his phone from his pocket and hit the speed dial button. It barely rang through once before Sam picked up. Dean didn’t beat around the bush. “Cas and I found the source of the potion. Aaron spiked a beer barrel at that bar we were at yesterday.”

Sam swore, and something clattered to the ground on his end. “Do you need backup? I can be there in fifteen minutes.”

“We handled it. We’ve got the barrel, and we’re heading back to the motel.”

“Great. Good.” It might have been Dean’s imagination, but he could have sworn that Sam sounded disappointed. A groan and a sigh followed as Sam picked up whatever he’d dropped. “Sophie and I need a few more hours to brew the antidote, then it needs to refrigerate for another hour or two after that, so we’ll catch up with you guys first thing in the morning.”

“Will the antidote work on the beer?” Dean asked, side-eyeing the barrel and Cas along with it.

Sam puffed a laugh, and his voice became muffled as he spoke to Sophie before coming back on the line. “Yes, Dean, the cure will work on the beer.”

Dean shot Cas a thumbs up. “Awesome.”

He could imagine Sam smiling and shaking his head as he said, “Let me know if anything else happens.”

Without a sign-off, the line cut out, and Dean slipped his phone back into his pocket and turned to Cas. “Good news: the beer can be saved. This hunt wasn’t a total loss after all.”

“With or without the beer, this hunt wasn’t a loss at all,” said Cas. “You may not have killed a monster, but you helped these people. You saved them from themselves.”

Dean scoffed. “That’s your takeaway from the bar fight I started?”

“You didn’t start it.” Cas said it in _that_ tone, the one that sounded like he was reciting an inarguable fact, the one Dean couldn’t bite back at, so he didn’t.

They fell into silence with only the sounds of their feet slapping against the concrete and the buzz of the streetlights following them along the sidewalk. The icy wind calmed to a cool breeze, and Dean breathed it in, letting it ease the burn in his lungs. Stars twinkled overhead, less than could be seen from the bunker or the open road but so many more than in any city. It felt peaceful, and it spread over Dean like a balm.

He glanced at Cas and at the firm hold he had on the barrel, hands splayed and steady, and Dean’s fingers twitched. The tremor passed like static at the memory of a palm pressed against his, of warm skin and a strong grip keeping him steady.

Dean snapped his gaze away and squeezed his hand into a fist before the craving for physical contact that was running through his veins made him do something stupid.

Holding Cas’s hand had been impulsive—an act brought on by a combination of adrenaline and Sophie’s potion. Cas had so little experience with the more intimate side of humanity that he had no way of knowing that holding hands was not something men did with their friends. Dean shouldn’t have taken advantage of that.

In the blink of an eye, the peacefulness vanished, and guilt was quick to burrow its way into the places the warmth left behind. That was all it took for the night’s events to catch up with him. A deep ache overtook his muscles, and a dull throb pulsed through his face and torso. He felt like he’d gone a couple of rounds with Chuck Norris and come out on the losing side. His pace slowed, and his breathing became laboured.

Cas took notice, stopping in his tracks as he said, “You’re hurt.”

Dean tried to shrug it off but winced when his shoulders jolted. “Turns out humans can do just as much damage as monsters if you’re not careful.” When Cas went to put the barrel down, Dean held out a hand, stopping short of touching Cas’s arm. “It’ll be fine. I’ve had worse.”

Cas sighed. “I’ll take a look when we get to the motel.”

That didn’t give Dean much time to cool down—no time at all, in fact. While he’d been mopping, they’d covered a lot of ground, and one last bend in the road landed them in the parking lot of a squat building in front of which the vacancy sign buzzed and flickered.

Dean stumbled, his stomach churning much like it had those few times Cas had teleported him somewhere. Unease spread through him, and his mind threw up one muddled thought after another all leading to the same impression: he did not want to be stuck in a motel room with Cas for untold hours with nothing to distract himself with.

Cas, however, didn’t hesitate. He walked up to the right door and waited while Dean fumbled for the key.

With hot, sweaty palms—and feeling more and more like a grown-ass guy taking a chick home for the first time—Dean pushed open the door, stepped aside, then stopped. His gaze went from the doorway to the barrel and back again.

“Shit.”

“We didn’t think this all the way through,” said Cas as he reached the same conclusion. He took a step back and eyed the building, gaze landing on the window. Tilting his head toward it, he asked, “Does it open all the way?”

Dean didn’t answer and instead dashed inside to check. He leaned against the kitchen table to reach the latch, but it wobbled and groaned beneath him, so he shoved it out of the way. The latch was stiff from frost and disuse, but with a heave, Dean got it unlocked and slid the window open.

Cas waited on the other side and carefully shifted the barrel so that its edge rested on the sill. “I’m going to push it in halfway, then come inside to get the rest of it in. I need you to keep it balanced while I go through the door.” Dean nodded already grabbing on to the barrel, but Cas wasn’t done. In a tone that should be reserved only for misbehaving children, he added, “Do not try to lift it, Dean.”

Dean tried to glare instead of looking sheepish. He loosened his grip and slid his hands to the top and side of the barrel, moving to the left so that he stayed next to the window where he could counterbalance and not lift. Cas pushed the barrel, stopping halfway as promised, and waited as Dean locked his knees and gave a go-ahead nod.

The sudden weight difference as Cas let go made Dean falter. He almost let go as his muscles bulged and his tendons stretched, teeth gritting so hard his jaw hurt. “Son of a—”

Cas was there in two seconds flat, and Dean could almost forget that the guy’s wings were out of commission. The angel dragged the barrel the rest of the way in and lifted it so that it didn’t bang against the creaky wooden floor. The ease with which he did it looked a whole lot more impressive now that Dean knew how much the damn thing weighed.

The floorboards groaned and protested as Cas set the barrel down in a corner, but they didn’t crack, and they quieted down after a second. In that silence, Dean’s rasping breaths sounded all the louder. Cas marched over to him, his face scrunching with concern, and Dean tried to push himself away from the wall, but his limbs wouldn’t cooperate, so he stood, slumped and too sore to move.

Cas stopped less than a foot away, critical eyes roving over Dean’s face as he laid a palm on Dean’s cheek and said, “Here. Let me.”

Warmth ebbed from Cas’s hand and washed over Dean, making him feel like he was slipping under a down comforter over silk sheets. His eyes flagged shut as the pain eased away, and his breathing evened out.

It took him longer than it should have done to realise that the pain relief kept coming despite the worst of his injuries being taken care of. It seeped deep into him—so much further than it had ever gone before—and rubbed against his sore bones and tense muscles like the most extreme deep-tissue massage available. It felt good—really good. Spa-day-followed-by-copious-amounts-of-sex good.

The thought had his eyes snapping open as his body took a little too much interest in the situation. He felt like he was starring in a soft-core porno with the way Cas was cupping his face, and the fact that he wasn’t hating it made his gut twist.

He pushed away from the wall and out of Cas’s reach, grunting and grumbling as he went. “Dammit, Cas. I’m fine.”

“Of course you are.” The words came out just above a whisper and were followed by an exasperated sigh.

Dean ignored it as he bolted—at a controlled pace—toward the bathroom, his thoughts so overcrowded with the need to get some distance between Cas and himself that he almost forgot his wash bag and had to make a u-turn to grab it. He kept his gaze firmly turned away from Cas and only caught a glimpse of him as the bathroom door closed between them, spying the tail-end of an eye-roll.

The door clicked shut, and Dean could breathe again. The weight on his lungs lifted, leaving him feeling like he’d been underwater for too long and had finally come up for air. It hadn’t felt like drowning, even if the rushed beat of his heart tried to convince him it had. There had been something comfortable in the pressure, something warm in the suffocation—like a too-tight hug meant to squeeze all his broken pieces back together.

Releasing his white-knuckled grip on the door handle, Dean stepped toward the tub, shedding clothing as he went and kicking it into a corner.

His toes curled as they touched the cold fibreglass, calloused skin grating over the cracks and scratches of the off-white surface. When he turned the control, the shower head sputtered and spat like an old man with a cough, pipes groaning and clanging until they forced out a steady stream of warm water. Dean upped the temperature as far as it would go, making steam rise and fill the small room. He flinched when he stepped beneath the spray, the scalding water burning his skin and turning it a bright red.

Without lowering the temperature, he grabbed the motel soap and started scrubbing it over himself with ruthless strokes. He scoured away the day’s dirt and sweat and a layer of skin along with it, washing off James Aaron’s apartment and the whole thing with that guy on the street and hoping that the pelting water would beat away the tension thrumming through him.

When every inch of him was cleaner than he had ever been, he leaned his forehead against the cold tile wall, breath coming out in short pants as he watched the soap suds circle the drain at his feet.

With no task left to occupy his mind, his thoughts wandered to Cas, and certain parts of his body took notice, stirring to attention.

A flood of heat that had nothing to do with the hot water burned over his cheeks, and he tried to think of something else—anything else. Roofied or not, he was not going to be that guy who thought pervy thoughts about his best friend to jerk off to in the shower.

Sophie’s potion, that was all this was. He was feeling extra horny because of it and was focusing his urges on the closest person around. He wasn’t interested in Cas specifically. He couldn’t be.

He tried to think about Trisha or Jesse, Sophie or Sarah; he even gave Daisy Duke a try, but his mind kept stubbornly flicking back to Cas. Cas, whose voice sounded like he’d swallowed gravel. Cas, whose eyes shone so bright when he smiled. Cas, whose grip raised Dean from Hell. Cas—

Dean shook himself.

He was not allowed to be interested in Cas, not even temporarily because Cas was his best friend, and that would be awkward. Also, Cas was a guy—well, not really. Cas was a ‘multi-dimensional wavelength of celestial intent’, but he had the body of a man, and Dean didn’t swing that way, not for pleasure.

He’d thought about it, though. Whenever he saw a good-looking face in the crowd, his eyes would linger a little too long and his pulse would flow a little faster, and he’d think: _maybe_. But he always turned away because that wasn’t him.

Except Cas was harder to ignore.

Cas could be anywhere, doing anything, yet, for some reason, he spent most of his time by Dean’s side.

Dean thought he knew Cas pretty well. They’d been through a lot together: Hell, Purgatory, alternate realities, several apocalypses—but one thought always came to burst that delusion of closeness. Cas had been alive since the beginning of the universe. What hope did Dean have of ever understanding someone that old who had seen so much? He was out of his depth.

With a drawn-out sigh, Dean turned off the valve and stepped out of the tub. He towelled off and threw on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt that he’d abandoned on the bathroom floor last night, grabbing his discarded suit as he unlocked the door, and he stepped out.

Cas stood between the two beds, staring at a painting of Lake Eufaula. He’d shed the trench coat and suit jacket and laid them out on one of the beds—Dean’s bed. Dean stared at it as the part of his brain that insisted on being inappropriate brought up thoughts of marking territory and staking a claim. He tried to shake the idea off, but it was like batting at gnats—the damn things wouldn’t leave him alone.

The motel room was so non-descriptive that Dean had barely registered anything about it the night before. He’d stayed in a thousand places like this one and would probably stay in a thousand more but watching Cas look around with that too-serious expression and those too-observant eyes made Dean’s gut twist with a sudden bout of self-consciousness.

He did his best to push the feeling away as he cleared his throat, drawing Cas’s attention away from his perusal. “I’m surprised the trench coat still comes off.”

Cas tilted his head, and the lines on his face deepened his perpetually confused expression. “You’ve seen me without it before.”

A blush burned its way up Dean’s neck as his brain reverted back to his horny teenager days when that kind of comment only served to throw up all types of crude, clothing-less images. Only this time he wasn’t imagining the hot cheerleader who’d decided to go a day without her pom-poms; instead, he saw Cas, and the room got uncomfortably hot.

Without a decent comeback at the ready, Dean lumbered over to the fridge and peered into it, letting the cold air wash over him. It cooled his burning skin and brought some sense back to his mind, but he couldn’t bring himself to look over at Cas, who seemed to have lost interest in the conversation.

Before he decided to crawl into the fridge, Dean grabbed a beer and closed the fridge door, but as he uncapped the bottle, his gaze landed on the barrel, and his stomach churned enough to make him change his mind. He set the bottle down on the counter and went to look out the window, all the while keeping Cas in sight out of the corner of his eye.

The silence felt heavy in the small room, and Dean was almost glad when Cas said, “You never answered my question.”

Dean took a moment to rack his brain, but the evening had been too hectic for him to remember any unanswered queries. He turned away from the window to find Cas frowning at the pay-per-view pamphlet. “Huh?”

Cas set the pamphlet back onto the TV set and took extra care to centre it just right. “I saw several people slapping each others’ rears at the bar, and I still don’t understand why humans do it.”

Dean stared, his mind blank, convinced he’d misheard or misunderstood, but when Cas turned his way with a questioning tilt of his brows, Dean knew he’d heard just fine.

A laugh bubbled from his stomach into his throat and got caught there, sending him into a coughing fit while his mind flashed back to the first time Cas had voiced that curiosity: sitting in an old cabin, watching porn while Sam and Dean worked.

Dean’s eyes watered as he choked on air, but Cas kept on staring, so Dean took a deep breath and managed to say, “It’s what people do when they like each other.”

“Oh.”

Through the blur of tears, Dean saw Cas’s shoulder’s drop as he slowly sat on the bed, springs squeaking beneath his weight.

“Have I done something wrong?” Cas asked.

The laughter stopped. Dean’s brow furrowed, and he quickly wiped away the tears and ignored his burning throat as he took a step in Cas’s direction. “‘Course not.”

Cas studied his clasped hands for a moment and sighed before looking back at Dean. “You haven’t been acting like yourself. The potion is obviously affecting you, but it feels like more than that. Something must be wrong.”

Dean shook his head only for his gaze to catch on the headboard over Cas’s shoulder, where nail grooves had been clawed into the wood. His jaw clamped shut, and he huffed a breath, his insides squirming. He was two seconds away from stomping off because could there be one thing not screaming sex at him right now, please.

Except he knew he wouldn’t leave. His feet were glued to the floor, and if he broke free, it wouldn’t be to the door he would march. Cas felt like a damn magnet, and Dean was the tiny iron particle that didn’t stand a chance.

“You can be very obtuse at times, Dean,” Cas said, snapping Dean’s focus back to him.

“I what?”

Cas rose from his seat and slowly closed the last of the distance between them. The closer he got, the faster Dean’s heart pounded, sweat dampened the back of his t-shirt, and he squeezed his hands into fists to hide the way they shook. “Whatever is bothering you, you can tell me,” said Cas. “I’m your friend.”

They stood no more than a foot apart. When Cas heaved a sigh, Dean felt it against his neck; when Cas frowned, Dean saw the way the angel’s eyes clouded. The smell of laundry detergent wafted off him and mixed with the cheap motel soap coming from Dean. There was more, though—an underlying feeling that always followed Cas, a tingling of electricity like a forewarning to a dry thunderstorm, an energy that was both volatile and warm, dangerous and exhilarating.

Dean’s gaze fell to Cas’s lips, and, even as sirens rang through his mind, the loudest part of him shouted, _“Fuck it!”_

He leaned forward and kissed his best friends.

Their teeth clashed and their noses bumped as warm lips met chapped ones, and finally, Dean understood, even if his brain still didn’t quite get what it was, his body did. His lips parted Cas’s, and he shivered at the feel of him, the smell and taste of him, and Dean’s hormones went into overdrive, like when he was sixteen and puberty had finally kicked in, making him feel everything and him not having a damn clue what to do about it. But he knew now. He knew—

 _Shit_. Was Cas kissing him back? Or was he standing there, frozen in horror, too shocked to move?

Dean pulled away, an apology spilling from his mouth, but before the words could get out, Cas grabbed two handfuls of his t-shirt and dragged him back in, stealing the air from his lungs in a dizzying kiss.

What the angel lacked in technique, he made up for in enthusiasm, and in that kiss, Dean tasted something that made his head spin and set his insides afire and brought to life every other chick-flick, romantic cliché he’d ever mocked. He felt giddy, electrified, invincible. It was nothing like when that guy in the street had kissed him because this was Cas and Cas meant safety; Cas meant comfort. Cas meant home.

Dean rested his hands on Cas’s cheeks, the stubble beneath his fingertips creating a strange sort of friction that Dean found invigorating. He ran his tongue over Cas’s bottom lip, desperate for more, and Cas gave it to him, opening his mouth and letting Dean in as his arms wound around Dean’s waist, pulling him close so that there wasn’t an inch of space left between them.

With a moan that Dean would have firmly denied was his under other circumstances, he spun Cas around until the angel’s back was pressed against a wall. The thought dimly occurred to him that there was no way he could’ve done that if Cas hadn’t let him.

Cas had been punched, kicked, shot, stabbed and thrown through walls, but unless there was unnatural strength behind it—a demon’s malice or an angel’s intent—he could choose not to register the sensation. Hell, Dean had nearly broken his fist on Cas’s jaw that one time he got it in his head that decking an angel was a good idea. Cas could only feel things when he wanted to, and he was choosing to feel this.

Cas bit down on Dean’s lip, kissing like an animal fighting for air. His hands went to Dean’s hair, pulling and tugging, causing delicious pinpricks of pain that had Dean groaning and rocking into Cas, grinding against him. There wasn’t an inch of space between them, yet still, Dean needed to be closer. He eased back so that he could unbutton Cas’s shirt and remove the tie, fingers sliding as quickly as possible despite the way they trembled. Cas helped, starting from the bottom while Dean worked on the top. When their hands met, Dean dropped his mouth to Cas’s neck as Cas shrugged out of his shirt. Dean kissed the sensitive skin and ran his hands over Cas’s surprisingly buff torso.

“Dean.” His name came out as a moan from Cas’s lips, carried off in needy pants of breath. Chest heaving beneath Dean’s fingers, pushing against him.

Dean gave a sharp bite to Cas’s earlobe, making the angel gasp as Dean stepped away. His eyes glided over his best friend, taking in the sharp collarbone and defined muscle usually hidden beneath loose clothing. He took a moment to think that he’d need to hit the bunker’s gym more often, then he pulled off his t-shirt and watched Cas’s gaze drop, pupils blown, leaving only a trace of blue behind.

A growl rumbled in the back of Cas’s throat, and he surged forward, pushing Dean with barely-tempered angelic strength.

Dean landed hard on the bed. The breath fled his lungs, and he didn’t get the chance to catch it again before Cas joined him. The bedsprings creaked loudly as Cas moved on top of him, pinning him into the mattress, pushing against him, and kissing him like it was the only thing that mattered.

“More,” Dean mumbled into Cas’s mouth.

Cas broke the kiss, face hovering above Dean’s as he said, “Whatever you want.”

The look in Cas’s eyes made Dean’s already pounding heart pick up speed, stomach fluttering as confessions he didn’t take lightly eagerly waited on the tip of his tongue. Dean dragged Cas into a kiss and lost himself in it.

*******

“So?” Dean asked, lying, sweaty and panting, next to Cas, who was just as dishevelled as he was. “How was it for you?”

As the high abated, his nerves resurfaced. The warmth in his gut and the stuttering of his heart insisted that this had been something far greater than just two people getting their rocks off, and he wasn’t sure how to handle that.

Cas rolled onto his side with a groan, bending his elbow and propping his head onto his raised hand so that he looked down at Dean. His eyes lost the hazy look of sex and regained their usual intensity as he thought through his answer—he had to _think_ about it. That wasn’t a good sign.

A frayed laugh escaped Dean, one he tried to make cocky as he said, “Please, don’t somehow compare it to religion. You’ve already ruined Wile E. Coyote for me.”

Cas’s lips quirked upward, and he leaned down, his nose bumping against Dean’s and his breath fanning over Dean’s mouth. “It was highly enjoyable.”

Dean guffawed, his nerves easing just like that, and he leaned up for a quick press of their lips in a kiss that barely qualified because of their smiles.

“I love you,” said Cas, his hand resting over Dean’s heart.

Those words did something to Dean’s insides—as though every organ simultaneously started an acrobatics routine complete with fanfare and a cheering audience. An answer bubbled up in his throat, and he didn’t try to stop it. “I love you, too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing this chapter has made me realise that I am very bad at writing romances. The amount of editing it took to get this part of the story even halfway decent is absurd. The characters didn’t help either because Dean’s so obtuse that he won’t figure his and Cas’s feelings out unless they smack him in the face and Cas is too polite and accommodating to do that.


	10. The Morning After

The sun filtered in through the partially closed curtains, falling over Dean in a warm yet unwelcome caress.

As sleep faded away, his skull began to throb, and his bones turned to lead, weighing him down against the mattress as though they were trying to crush him from within. 

With a groan and no small amount of effort, he rolled onto his stomach and buried his face into his pillow.

The sadistic asshole who had designed this room had placed the bed so that the first rays of morning sun fell directly onto the pillow. They hit Dean in the face, those gentle beams feeling like evil pinpricks going straight through his eyelids and driving into his brain. He wasn’t sure if there was a blanket he could throw over his head, but if there was one, he was either lying on it, or it wasn’t within reach—he wasn’t capable of enough movement to find out which.

Another groan rattled his throat as his focus went to the foul taste in his mouth and the numb feeling of his teeth. If he were to find out that he’d eaten a decaying skunk, then ripped out half his teeth and replaced them with dentures, he wouldn’t have been surprised.

The pounding in his skull worsened, and a whimper tried to force its way out of him, but he wouldn’t let it.

He couldn’t remember ever being this hungover before, not even after the CBGB incident when he was sixteen and he’d been introduced to tequila, vodka, and whatever else before his dad had hauled his ass out of there. That little headache didn’t come close to the sledgehammer currently digging away at his head. His insides roiled as though his stomach had taken a trip to the stormy high seas without him. If he had the energy for it, he was sure he’d throw up.

Last night was a jumble of adrenaline and blank spaces. Fuzzy memories blurred with amnestic episodes, blending into a senseless timeline of events. One thing was for sure: Dean hadn’t drunk enough to have caused this. There had been whiskey and beer, but that was it, and he drank more than that practically every other day.

_ Beer. _

The word caught in his mind and jump-started the hangover-soaked gears of his brain.

He bolted upright, wincing as every part of his body complained, and he fought the urge to lie back down. His gaze tripped over the room and landed on the beer barrel, which still sat in the corner by the window, patiently waiting to be dealt with.

Dean stared at it as memories rushed back—Sophie’s potion, a bar fight, taking the barrel to the motel, and Cas…something about Cas. He couldn’t remember. The holes in his memory yawned wide like black, empty holes, with no hint or clue as to what had happened during them.

He squeezed his eyes shut and gulped air, trying to focus on evening out his breathing and waiting for his heart rate to follow suit.

Slowly, the pounding in his skull calmed to a more manageable level, but the ache in his body remained—a soreness that he was all too familiar with, but which had little to do with the events from last night that he could remember. His muscles felt like jello, and the heaviness pushing him to lie back down wouldn’t quit. The knots in his shoulders and back had disappeared, like a wind-up toy whose motor had finally been given a rest. His mouth felt swollen and chapped, and bruises dotted his skin from strong fingers and eager lips. Satiety thrummed through him more completely than even some one-on-one time with Magic Fingers could achieve.

Dean felt thoroughly well fucked, but he couldn’t remember any of it.

The spot next to him on the bed was empty and cold, same as the rest of the room. No light came through the half-open bathroom door, and no items of clothing lay forgotten on the floor.

Try as he might, Dean couldn’t remember who he’d shared a bed with last night—or if it had happened on a bed. The rug burn on his back suggested it hadn’t, but he wasn’t sure what to make of the reddened skin that crept from his neck to his chest and lower. The enthusiasm and brute strength it would have taken to make him feel this sore had him thinking that maybe Dr Trisha had been his bed-buddy, but that was the best guess he could come up with.

He rolled out of bed with as much grace as a drowsy bear and stumbled over to the TV set, on top of which sat a pile of his clothes, neatly folded and entirely creaseless.

By the time he’d pulled on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, he was done worrying about his drunken hookup—it wasn’t like this was the first time he’d forgotten a girl after the act. Now, he was more worried about Cas. Had he kicked the angel out last night so that he could have a roll in the hay with some chick? He wanted to say no, hoping he had a little more integrity than that, but with Sophie’s potion pumping through him, who knew what he was capable of?

His eyes darted around the room, searching for his phone, and he found it on the kitchen table next to a pile of motel stationery. 

Legs shaking like a newly-born foal, Dean made his way across the room, holding on to the wall as he went and almost knocking over a beer bottle that sat forgotten on the counter. The table had been pushed away from the window, which Dean vaguely remembered doing to get the barrel inside, but now it meant that he had to shift away from the wall to reach his phone. He got a step before his knee buckled and almost sent him sprawling to the floor. Arms windmilling, he caught himself on the table’s edge and thought it would be just his luck if his weight sent the rickety old thing flying, but it stayed put.

He reached for his phone but stopped mid-motion when he noticed the motel notepad and the note scribbled onto it.  _ ‘Gone to get coffee,’ _ it read in Cas’s neat script. A frown creased Dean’s brow.  _ Since when did Cas leave notes? _

He grabbed his phone and was about to hit the speed dial button when keys jangled outside, and the lock on the front door turned. Cas walked in, coffee cup in hand, followed by Sam and Sophie.

“Dean,” said Cas the moment his gaze landed on him. “Are you all right?”

Dean’s stomach flipped, and he braced for the second wave of hangover symptoms, but it laid off after that first hint of nausea. “I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Because Sophie cast the reversal,” said Sam as he chucked off his coat and slung it over the back of one of the chairs. He looked tired and tense—shoulders set, gaze wayward, and hands shaking from unspent energy. “And then we nearly ran over Cas near that dinner along the highway.”

Dean’s eyes snapped to Cas, gaze flicking up and down as he checked for injuries, but Cas shook his head and handed Dean the cup of coffee. “I was disoriented, but I’m better now.”

“That’s my bad,” said Sophie. She eyed the beer barrel with a frown and thinly pressed lips before giving her head a light shake and turning her focus to Dean and Cas. “When Sam told me you were infected, I should have warned you that the reversal has a few side-effects.”

“What kind of side-effects?” Dean asked, tone rough, ready and willing to chew her out.

She gave him an exasperated head tilt and an eye-roll. “Chill. The hangover isn’t permanent; it’ll pass in a day or so. What won’t pass is the memory loss. You won’t remember what the potion made you do. Cas said he’s having trouble recalling a few things that happened last night—blank spaces in his memory where the potion helped him act out his impulses.”

“That’s happening to me, too,” said Dean as he side-eyed Cas and wondered what kind of impulses the angel had played out last night. Cas seemed to be asking himself the same thing. He stood against the counter, his eyes clouded by thought, his brows set in a deep thrown, and his lips pouting like an angry two-year-old.

Sophie nodded. “It’s normal. The reversal takes its job seriously. It can’t undo what was done, but it can make people think it never happened.”

Dean scrubbed a hand over his jaw, feeling his stubble scratch his palm and burn it, kind of like the rug burns from his mystery night with his mystery bed-buddy whose identity he’d never get to find out, apparently—not like it mattered. He’d had plenty of one-night stands, and this one was no different, even if it had been above average. It bugged him, though. Something kept tugging at the edge of his mind, a memory floating out of reach, taunting him.

He gave his head a shake, shoving the memory from his thoughts, pushing it to where it would stop bothering him as he got his mind back on track. “So no one’ll remember what happened. Great.”

Sophie tugged her bottom lip with her teeth and made a noise in the back of her throat. “Not quite. The people who were affected won’t remember, but everyone else will.”

“The doc said that 90% of the town was acting crazy,” said Dean. “In a town this size, what’s 10%?”

“Being affected and acting crazy don’t necessarily go hand in hand.”

Before Dean could start looking confused, Sam picked up where Sophie had left off. “Mob mentality,” he said. He folded his arms over his chest, his features scrunching as he held back a yawn. “Not everyone went to that bar downtown to celebrate after the game on Sunday, and not everyone had a beer then or after, but when neighbours and friends started acting up, some people were willing to go along for the ride.”

“Huh.” Dean joined Cas by the counter and leaned back against it, his elbow brushing against Cas’s as he raised the coffee cup to his lips. “That’s gonna make for some awkward conversations.”

“I’m going to stick around for the aftercare,” said Sophie, and when Dean’s eyes shot to her, she raised her hands. “No spells or potions. I promise. But I helped make this mess, so I’m going to help clean it up.”

Dean reluctantly felt his respect for the woman grow, and Cas said, “That’s very good of you, Sophie.”

A blush painted her cheeks pink, and she shifted from one foot to the other, tucking her hair behind her ears, before she cleared her throat and straightened her stance. “Yeah, well, I’m also going to help you guys pack because, no offence, but having a bunch of hunters around is making me nervous.”

“I’m not a hunter,” said Cas.

“What are you then?” Her eyes roved over him. “Their accountant?” Cas frowned, and she shook her head. “Never mind. You’re with them, so the same rule applies to you.”

Sam gave a weary smile and nodded. “Fair enough.”

And so they packed. It took them less than twenty minutes, most of which was spent detoxing the beer and bottling it in the many little liquid storage containers that Sophie had brought along with her from her apartment. When she’d pulled those from the backseat of her old Beetle, Dean had decided that she deserved a second chance.

Now, he stood in the mostly deserted motel parking lot, leaning against the Impala, ankles crossed in front of him, with Sophie perched on the hood of her car as they waited for Sam to finish checking that they hadn’t forgotten anything in the motel. Without a task to focus on, Dean went over the thoughts niggling at his brain. A forgotten memory still taunted him. Every time he thought he’d grabbed it, it flitted away, and it was driving him crazy.

“Do you always look so constipated when you’re thinking?” Sophie asked.

Dean threw her a glare but stopped short of a comeback as that damn memory jeered through his mind. He sighed instead and rubbed a hand over his face. “Are you sure there’s no way of finding out what happened last night?”

“‘Fraid so. The memory’s gone. Right now, your mind is just playing tricks on itself because it doesn’t like not knowing; it’s trying to incite you to remember what you’ve forgotten by teasing you with a mirage.”

Dean gave her a hard look. “You know an awful lot about this for someone who’s never had to use that reversal spell before.”

“This isn’t magic; it’s psychology.” Seeing his eyebrows rise, she added, “I have a degree.”

His glower vanished, but his eyebrows didn’t lower. “You wanted to be a shrink?”

She smiled, and Dean realised this was the first time he’d seen the expression on her. “Not really. I wanted to understand how people work and maybe figure out a way to help a few out.”

The thought was nice, bringing about a warm feeling in Dean’s chest, but the sentimentality of it had him shifting his weight and dropping eye contact, so he let his mind wander to safer territory, a lopsided smile pulling at his lips as he asked, “So you opened up a sex shop?”

Her smile turned into a grin. “Sex is one hell of a remedy.”

Dean’s thoughts went to the pleasant ache still weighing him down, and he ran his tongue over his growing smile, dropping his gaze to the ground to hide the expression from Sophie. “Don’t I know it.”

She laughed, and Dean chuckled. It felt good—like a weight lifting from his shoulders, and he was set on enjoying it after the hell he’d been through over the past couple of months. But all too soon, the mirth left him, and the weight crashed back onto him when his brain started reaching for that illusion of a memory again.

Sophie noticed his silence, and her smile eased away, even though the softness in her eyes remained. “There is one way to find out what you got up to last night.” Dean’s attention shot back to her. “Think about your impulses—your deepest, darkest desires—and pinpoint the strongest of them. It might not be easy, but you’re the only person who can answer your question.”

He cocked his brows at her, a hint of a smile returning to his lips. “That sounded like something a shrink would say.”

She conceded the point with a nod and a laugh just as Sam stepped out of the motel room, lumbered like a pack mule with his duffel bag, backpack, and satchel. He pulled the door shut behind and juggled his bags and keys to get the door locked.

“We good to go?” Dean asked when Sam stepped over to the car.

“Looks like it,” said Sam. He waved at Cas, who sat behind the wheel of his truck, which he’d had to fetch from downtown while Sam and Dean had packed. Dean had offered him a ride into town, but Cas had turned him down, wanting to walk and clear his head.

Cas returned the wave, and Sam popped the Impala’s trunk to dump his bags in.

“All right.” Dean turned back to Sophie. “If you need a hand around here, there’s a Doctor Sarah Idris at the clinic and a young deputy, Matt Warner, down at the station who can probably give you a hand. Just watch what you say around them.”

She nodded. “Civilians. Got it.”

The trunk closed with a bang, and Sam walked over to give Sophie a gentle clap on the shoulder. “Take care.”

“You too.”

The boys got into the car, and Sophie leaned down to peer at Sam through Dean’s broken window.

“Thanks again for replacing all my locks,” she said.

Sam smiled and nodded, and Sophie stepped up onto the curb as Dean turned the keys in the ignition. He backed out of the parking spot and threw Sophie one last wave before peeling out of there.

“You fixed her locks for her?” Dean asked as he veered onto the highway, checking the mirrors to make sure Cas followed close behind.

“Had to do something while we waited for Cas to get to her place with the spell ingredients,” Sam said with a shrug, his gaze going to the side window and staying there.

Seven hours of face time with a pretty girl, and that was how his brother decided to spend it? Sometimes Dean didn’t understand him at all.

He switched the radio to a soft rock station, lowering the volume so that the notes crooned over the speakers, and watched as Sam fell asleep on the way home. Left alone with his thoughts and the open road, Dean finger-drummed the steering wheel as he considered what Sophie had said about having to figure out his deepest desire. He stared at the road as he thought it over, raising his gaze every few minutes to check on Cas, but his mind came up blank.

With a sigh and a shake of his head, he pressed harder on the gas pedal, eager to put some mileage between him and that town.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know the whole “And they forgot it ever happened” thing is on the over-done side, but I wanted this to stay canon-compliant (-ish) so that I didn’t get the smart idea of turning it into a long-winded AU (which I would have ended up doing had I not wrapped it up, and I have enough WIPs as is). One last chapter to go, then we’re all done!


	11. The Butt Slap Protocol

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter!

The heavy, metal door to the bunker clanged open, and the sound echoed through the War Room below, disrupting the quiet only for a moment before silence fell once more.

Dean shook off the chill that went through him as he stepped over the threshold, the same chill he’d felt walking down the deserted streets of Eufaula. Lifting his left shoulder so his duffel bag didn’t slip down, Dean took the stairs slowly, keeping a firm and steady hold on the crate of beer bottles in his arms. Cas followed behind with the second crate, and Sam took up the rear, laden down with all his stuff as well as Dean’s weapons bag.

“I don’t wish to underestimate you,” said Cas as he lugged his crate onto the map table, “but are you sure you’ll manage to drink all this.”

Sam smiled, eyelids drooping and hair mussed from his seven-hour catnap. He still looked tired, and there was tension in his shoulders and a strained note in his quirked lips, but at least he was back to making eye contact. “Don’t make it sound like a challenge, or Dean’ll finish off the lot in record time.”

Dean’s brow furrowed with mock affront, the illusion ruined by the wink he threw his brother’s way. “I’ll share.”

Sam shook his head and bit back a yawn only for his gaze to catch on the patch of floor where Maggie’s body had fallen after Michael’s attack. The blood had been cleaned up, leaving the space unmarred, but even Dean’s mind brought up the memory of Maggie lying there, scared and broken, her eyes burnt out and her life taken by the monster she’d crossed worlds to escape.

Any hint of a smile left Sam’s face. He cleared his throat, shook his head, and left the room without another word. Dean stared after him, his heart squeezing tight in a way it hadn’t in a long time.

Empathy was a bitch.

“Will he be all right?” asked Cas, his voice low enough not to disturb the ghosts that remained.

Dean turned away from the door his brother had left through, lightly tapping his tight fists against the table. “He’ll bounce back. We always do.”

Cas’s eyes softened with sympathy, and it made Dean shift, discomfort rolling through him at being the object of pity. He tore his gaze away and grabbed two of the make-shift beer bottles, handing one to Cas who shook his head.

“I think I’ll avoid alcoholic beverages for a little while,” he said.

The feeling was mutual, but Dean wouldn’t admit to that because if he did, he’d be broadcasting that something was wrong, and they all had enough to deal with at the moment. So instead, he nodded at the cargo they’d carted in and asked, “And let all this go to waste?”

Cas glanced over the crates and smiled up at Dean. “I’m sure you’ll manage without me.”

Dean’s gut twisted. A ‘no, I won’t’ rose to his lips out of habit, but he pushed it down. This wasn’t a life-or-death, rallying-the-troops-before-a-final-battle moment of candour. Going all chick flick would make things weird. He uncapped the bottle and downed a swallow. The bitter taste sat on his tongue, and he rolled it around his mouth, savouring it even if the beer was a little on the tepid side. At least Sophie’s reversal spell hadn’t affected the quality.

Over on the other side of the table, Cas shifted, rolling his shoulders and cracking a kink out of his upper spine. He looked stiff and uncomfortable and kept shifting his weight. Dean would have blamed the seven-hour drive, except Cas had driven for longer stretches of time before now and walked it off like it was nothing. Short of a demonic or angelic showdown, Dean wasn’t sure what could make an angel ache, but something had obviously managed it last night.

His chest tightened, and he blamed the hangover that was still roughing him up. He took another sip of beer and picked at a spot of rust on the map table, keeping his tone casual as he asked, “So what impulses does an angel have?”

Cas went rigid. His shoulders tensed, and the rest of him went very still while his gaze dropped and turned inward. Dean almost felt bad for pushing the angel’s focus to the blank spaces in his memory, but the curiosity ate away at him. He needed to know what Cas had got up to last night.

Cas eventually glanced back Dean’s way, but he did so without raising his head. His chin rested close to his chest, and he looked almost demure in his uncertainty. “I don’t know, Dean.” He tilted his head a fraction. “What impulses do you have?”

Heat flooded Dean’s cheeks as the pleasant ache thrumming through him, dulled by the long drive, returned. He had to force his eyelids not to flutter shut, and he held his breath as a sigh tried to make its way out. Cas watched him with squinting eyes, and Dean averted his gaze. He did not want to be discussing his rough, kinky, mystery sex with Cas, so he chugged more beer, grabbed another bottle, and headed for the door to the bedrooms, muttering a quick, “Don’t know.”

Dean swore he could still feel Cas’s gaze on him even as he shut the door behind him and leaned against it with a drawn-out sigh. It felt like his bones had taken permission from his brain to revisit last night, going all achy and cottony at the same time, but he shook it off. The last thing he needed was to be caught out in the open with his eyes closed and bliss written all over his face.

This case hadn’t been all bad. He was willing to admit that much. Hell, there was some of it he might actually miss. The green light Sophie’s potion had given him to do whatever he wanted without fear of repercussions or judgment had felt freeing, and even if he couldn’t remember what he’d done, that feeling stuck with him. But not knowing was killing him. It was bad enough when other people lied to him and kept secrets from him, but now he was doing it to himself, too.

Eyes squeezing shut, he shook his head and moved on.

Beers in hand, he started down the corridor, intent on getting a couple hours of sleep before he dragged his toolkit out to repair the Impala. Imagining her sitting outside the bunker, forlorn and broken, made his insides hurt, but he couldn’t risk fixing her with his eyelids drooping the way they were.

Walking through the rats’ maze that was the bunker, he passed Jack’s room and stopped. Not a sound came from the other side of the door, and he figured the kid might be sleeping. His arm twitched, and he almost gave in, almost knocked, almost woke Jack up so he could apologise for letting Michael out. He squeezed his fingers into a fist and shook his head at the selfish desire to disturb the kid’s rest in favour of easing his own conscience.

He got to his room only to stand in the doorway and stare at his bed. Even as the comfortable mattress and warm sheets tried to lure him in, his earlier exhaustion fell away in a fit of twitching fingers and bunching muscles. His mind whirred with a second wave of energy that he’d thought was beyond him at this point.

With a shrug, he grabbed his toolkit from beneath his desk and headed back the way he’d come.

*******

Hours later, the Impala gleamed. Polished and waxed, the black coat of paint shone, and the new hubcaps glimmered beneath the garage light. Dean didn’t have the glass to replace the windows, but he’d make a pit stop next time he went out. For now, Baby looked close to brand new, and he was damn proud of the work he’d done on her.

“She’s looking good,” said Sam as he jogged up the steps, his laptop clutched beneath his arm.

Dean barely spared his brother a glance, too busy admiring his handiwork. “That she does.” Sam stepped up next to him, and out of the corner of his eye, Dean caught him wincing and rubbing his ass. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing.” His brow furrowed, and he cleared his throat. “Cas, uh—he slapped my butt.”

It took half a second for Dean’s brain to make sense of that information, and when it did, his burst of laughter came out as loud as a shout. Sam shook his head, hiding a thin-lipped, grudging smile that threatened to become more. “Sure, laugh it up.”

“I’m sorry,” Dean said, the words coming out breathlessly while he tried and failed to school his features. “He—he really…?”

Sam nodded. “Yeah. Did it hard too.”

The expression on Sam’s face forced another whoop of laughter out of Dean, and he had to turn away.

A memory popped into his head from last night of him and Cas in the motel room as Cas asked about the purpose of butt slapping. Dean had given the best answer he could think of, but in hindsight, he’d left a lot of room for misinterpretation.

His laughter stopped, and Sam glanced over at him with a concerned tilt of the brows. Dean brushed it off by taking the rag he’d stuffed in his back pocket and rubbing at a pristine spot on the Impala’s hood. Dismay settled in his gut as he thought over the fact that he was going to have to explain to Cas the proper butt slap protocol or else risk being on the receiving end of that open palm.

“What d’you got there?” Dean asked, nodding at Sam’s laptop and distracting himself from how much he was not looking forward to his upcoming conversation with Cas.

Sam shifted his computer from beneath his arm and almost set it down on the Impala’s roof before a low sound from Dean convinced him to rethink that plan. “A new case,” he said, flipping the computer open. “A dead undertaker and desecrated graves. I’m thinking ghoul.”

Dean watched his brother, the way Sam looked fixedly at the computer screen, once again stubbornly refusing to make eye contact. Dean had known one case wouldn’t be enough, especially one that had ended with such minimal bloodshed. Sam needed more, and he was itching to get it. Dean nodded and tossed the rag into his open toolbox.

“Grab your stuff,” he said. “Meet back here in five.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there we have it! What did you guys think? Does Cas remember? Does Dean remember too—if only subconsciously?
> 
> I hope everyone enjoyed the story, and if you did, keep an eye out after season 15 ends because I’ve got a bunch of spn fics lined up!


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